In recent years, the no-code model has been very popular, and BAT has launched its own no-code products. It is very helpful for enterprises to solve the informatization of business processes. This article shows Ajia the key elements of no-code products from the layout and functions, and gives you an in-depth understanding of this kind of products from the dimensions of user insight and competitive product analysis.
Have you ever had a flash of thought about creating a mini-program, a website to solve a specific problem or help others, or even if you're ready to start building your own R&D team? Or do you not have enough funds? Can't write code?
No-code is a very hot track, and it is predicted that the market size will reach 10 billion in 2024, and there are many players in the industry, and even Tencent, Alibaba, and Baidu have their own no-code products. A large part of these no-code products are oriented to solve the business process informatization of enterprises, and I believe everyone is familiar with this kind of no-code products. Today's article is about generating user-oriented consumer apps without code, and I hope it will be helpful to you.
It seems that I've started to pique your interest, and I'm going to show you the key elements of how to use no-code products from the layout and features, and I'll also dig deeper into user insights, competitor analysis, and product outlook. Next, enyoy~
1. Layout
The first is the layout, for those who are engaged in software design or development, the following picture should be very familiar to you. This is a typical UI design interface diagram, which contains three parts: the page and components on the left, the page preview in the middle, and the detailed configuration of the component or page on the right. You can configure the design, content, and interaction in each component.
Generally, the main operation page of a no-code platform for building a web page or applet is a canvas, on which you can build personalized software such as pages and buttons, and through the buttons on the shortcut operation bar, you can perform operations such as databases, third-party APIs, AI, previews and publishes.
canvas
Figma edit page
Second, the list of functions
Now that you've looked at the layout, let's take a look at the list of features.
1. Atomic-level components and interactions
Taking the web side as an example, the no-code group function is a component, which provides 24 kinds of rich components, which are divided into three categories: display, input, and container, including but not limited to text, image, button, table, rich text, video, input box, container, and view. A wide range of components opens up endless possibilities for application development.
Atomic-level components
No-code platforms also generally support a variety of ways to trigger interactions, including page loads/unloads, clicks, and hovering. The interaction includes condition judgment, loop execution, data table addition, deletion, modification and query, component operation, user registration/login/logout, page loading and unloading, payment, etc.
Atomic-level interactions
With components and interactions, no-code also provides a hyper-automatic engine that allows users to implement the logical design of the application like a flowchart without writing any code, which greatly lowers the barrier to entry for design and development, and can easily complete complex application design work.
Super-automatic engine
So far, we have basically explained why no-code can be used to develop software applications in a no-code way. Components, triggers, and interaction characteristics are inseparable and minimized, and users can complete the personalized design of the page through the canvas, and finally build the application logic through the visual logic engine. And these most basic functional modules are combined like building blocks to complete the personalized product design. No-code platforms, with their unique approach, empower users to complete app development quickly and efficiently.
2. Databases
Similarly, no-code platforms also provide a visual no-code creation database to store application data.
Like common relational databases, it supports the creation of forms and relationships between forms. Among them, the field types supported by the form include text, image, integer, infinite precision decimal and other types, and the relationship between forms is one-to-one and one-to-many.
At this point, we've made it clear how no-code platforms enable no-code app development. Visual database operations are paired with canvas-level operations to provide the foundational capabilities for no-code application development.
Visualize the database
3. Large language model capabilities
In today's market environment with many software applications, pure no-code development may no longer be able to meet complex needs. Therefore, no-code also incorporates the most advanced large language model capabilities into its no-code platform to enhance the competitiveness of users' products.
As far as I've learned, the advanced features of some no-code platforms include vector processing of text content in databases. This processing method makes the processed text have semantic recognition capabilities, rather than just staying at the level of simple structured processing.
At the same time, it supports no-code use of large language models for conversations. During the conversation, users can add content such as PDFs (processed via RAG retrieval), applied databases, and third-party APIs in context to improve the accuracy and richness of their answers.
Crucially, these advanced features can all be built in a no-code, visual way.
So, boldly use your imagination to build your own ChatGPT, ChatDatabase, ChatEverything and other applications with a no-code platform, unleash your creativity, and don't let code become an obstacle to innovation.
Large language model capabilities
4. Product Framework
In order to help you better understand the capabilities of no-code platforms, I drew a functional architecture diagram and listed the features of no-code.
Architecture diagram
5. Summary
There is no doubt that this kind of no-code platform can meet the flexible and personalized needs of users to a large extent, and then differentially compete with no-code platforms for enterprise informatization.
Atomic-level components and interaction design elements, self-developed ZVM canvas and visual database can achieve fast, efficient and flexible software construction. It is not limited to basic building functions, but also integrates advanced features such as large language models, enhanced search (RAG), vector spaces, and payments, which greatly improve the competitiveness of software applications.
Crucially, all of these complex processes don't require the user to write a single line of code. Users only need to configure it through a visual interface, and they can easily implement a powerful, personalized application.
3. User insights
What does this type of software look like? According to my observations, there are three categories of users: software product managers, Internet+ and software service providers.
For software product managers, I highly recommend them to try out a no-code platform for a number of reasons:
- Understand the implementation logic of the software and understand the software development process, so as to help write more efficient requirements documents and better communicate with the R&D team;
- If you have your own innovative ideas, but are limited by the ability to code, you can use no-code to make minimum viable products and validate these product ideas.
For Internet+ business operators, if they try to enhance the competitiveness of their business through Internet technology, such as realizing the digitalization, informatization and automation of business. With the advantages of no need to recruit R&D teams and no project and technical management, no-code platforms have become the first choice for Internet + business operators, allowing them to focus on the construction of core competitiveness.
Finally, as a software service provider, the current domestic software service provider has a poor living environment, the customer budget is decreasing, the competition is intensifying, and the cost remains high. No-code tools offer service providers a new way to deliver and save on development and maintenance costs. At the same time, it can also avoid problems such as increased project maintenance difficulty and rising cost due to personnel replacement.
Fourth, competitive product analysis
Low-code vendor graph, from LowCode
The explosion of the no-code development market, coupled with increasing competition, has caused new and old players to flock to it. Fanke Station, Towify, DingTalk, and Mingdaoyun are all important players in this field. Today, however, I hope to turn my attention to the more forward-looking field of AI application development and see what no-code platforms look like in the AI space.
Avoiding ads, this time as a competitor, it is a generative AI application innovation engine that provides a series of capabilities from agent construction, AI workflow orchestration, RAG retrieval, and model management, making it easy to build and operate generative AI native applications. The competitor currently supports the creation of chat assistants, text generation applications, agents, and workflows. In this analysis, we'll just compare workflows.
First, we see in the design page. Overall, Dify's editing page is much simpler, more like a process orchestration page that is convenient for logical processing with large language models.
Process orchestration
When it comes to functional nodes, a wide range of options and tools are offered. Including large language models (LLMs), knowledge retrieval, responses, classification, etc. At the same time, it supports functions such as search engine and audio generation, which can meet different needs, as you can refer to the figure below.
List of nodes
List of tools
On the client side, the page and interaction cannot be flexibly defined, but are fixed as the input box-process-output box, as shown in the following figure.
The result of the three-step translation workflow
At first glance, this may look like two completely different pieces of software, with no direct competition in sight on the surface.
However, from a longer-term perspective, I think the two may turn into direct competitors in the future AI application development market. This mainly depends on what future applications will take under the guidance of AI. Whether to add AI capabilities to mini programs, websites, apps, or pure input and output dialog boxes.
5. Summary
At this point, the basic content of the article has come to an end. The whole article will take you to a comprehensive understanding of no-code platforms from product experience, user insights, business models, product complaints and suggestions, and product outlooks.
This article was originally published by @宝宝心里苦啊 on Everyone is a Product Manager. Reproduction without the permission of the author is prohibited
The title image is from Unsplash and is licensed under CC0
The views in this article only represent the author's own, everyone is a product manager, and the platform only provides information storage space services