We’ll admit it, Skuid has a pretty cool name. It’s fun, it’s unique, and the different pronunciations we encounter always make us smile. (For the record, it’s technically pronounced Squid, like the sea creature).
Why did we decide on the name Skuid? It wasn’t for all of the nautical metaphors we could use (okay, maybe partly). And why did we spell it differently? Why didn’t we call it something like, “Squid CRM”? Skuid is actually an acronym that stands for Scalable Kit for User Interface Design.
Here, we’ll explain the guiding principles behind why we created the product, and why we gave it this name.Hint: the long and short of it is, we wanted to make our jobs (and all jobs in general) easier.
Build a scalable system.
Before Skuid, our founder, Ken, and three of our developers were working for another company Ken founded called Skoodat, where they built enterprise applications for schools. They built a great product, but the team quickly learned there was no one-size-fits-all solution for education.
Each school wanted to make tweaks to the product to tailor it to their unique needs. The Skoodat team spent a lot of time making similar changes over and over again… and they were bored. Ken and the developers wanted to make the process of updating enterprise applications faster, easier, and more efficient, and the solution needed to last the test of time.
The team also wanted to give their clients the ability to make changes to the apps on their own, which meant the solution needed to be simple enough for anyone to understand, no matter their business type, no matter their coding expertise. In short, this solution needed to be radically scalable. Enter Skuid.
Give developers the tools they need.
When we initially called Skuid a “kit,” we had no idea that it would evolve into a platform enterprise companies like Baker Hughes GE, HPE, Optimizely, and AWS would use to build their core business processes and systems. We were just solving a problem, a problem that, it turns out, a lot of other businesses encountered, too.
To that end, some aspects of the word “kit” still apply, because Skuid is designed to make everyone’s job easier, developers especially. Skuid functions as a toolkit for developers or citizen developers to deliver data-rich business applications for their clients, without having to write unnecessary code to build the app or connect to data sources. But unlike many no-code platforms, Skuid is also extensible.
Developers can code where they want to code, or where it makes more sense to code. That way, you never lose control or miss out on additional customization capabilities.
One of my favorite parts about Skuid is that you can always extend with Javascript where it makes sense and is appropriate, as a developer, this is what you’re looking for. You need that ability.
Zach McElrath, Principal Software Engineer and Skuid co-creator
Focus on human-centered user interface design.
Human-centered user interface design can change the way we think about a problem, and the way we work and collaborate together. It can boost user adoption and even create user delight. And all of this translates to increased productivity and efficiency for your business.
There was a time when we all thought human-centered user interface design in the enterprise was simply a “nice-to-have.” But as consumer apps continue to raise the bar for user experience (UX) and the ROI of UX skyrockets, it’s become clear: human-centered design is a “must-have.”
Our goal with Skuid is to make human-centered design an “easy-to-have.” Skuid customers can leverage both the Skuid platform and our Professional Services team to research, design, develop, and deploy apps that people actually want to use.
While this is a high-level overview on the principles behind creating the Scalable Kit for User Interface Design (Skuid), a more detailed, in-depth explanation is available. Download this free guide to learn about aPaaS solutions like Skuid, and how you can use them to build your business. Get the guide
