SmartHR, Japan’s leading cloud-based workforce management platform*, is expanding into talent management, further solidifying its position as a multi-product solution. We spoke with Yuki Sasaki and Soichi Masuda about how they’re refining the platform’s strengths and guiding it through this pivotal transformation.

_{(*Based on Deloitte Tohmatsu MIC Research Institute’s HR Tech Cloud Market: Current Status and Outlook 2023 Edition, in terms of projected shipment value for workforce management cloud services in 2023.)}

Yuki Sasaki | Director, Product Design Division, Product Headquarters, SmartHR / Product Designer

Yuki joined SmartHR in 2019, with both design agency and startup experience under his belt. He now leads the Product Design Division, overseeing the design and development of multiple features.

Soichi Masuda | Director, Accessibility Division, Product Headquarters, SmartHR / Accessibility Specialist

Soichi joined SmartHR in 2021 as a product designer, working on the employee survey feature. He now focuses on accessibility and multilingual support across the company.

Strengthening Organizations with Employee Data—SmartHR’s Approach

To start off, could you tell us a bit about SmartHR?

Yuki: SmartHR is a platform that digitizes and streamlines a wide range of HR and workforce processes, including hiring, employment contracts, onboarding, and year-end tax adjustments. By organizing this data efficiently, we enable organizations to leverage it for talent management functions like performance evaluation and skill management. These capabilities support organizational growth and increased productivity.

Yuki: A key strength of SmartHR lies in collecting employee information during onboarding and building a comprehensive database. While back-office operations are often seen as cost centers, integrating them with talent management allows companies to strengthen both their business and organization.

Lately, I’ve become even more aware that usability directly impacts product value. If a product is difficult to use, it’s not only an inconvenience for users—it can be detrimental to the business. That’s why ensuring usability isn’t just about delivering value to users; it’s also a crucial competitive advantage. As product designers, our mission is to refine and enhance usability continuously.

You both entered the HR field after joining SmartHR. What are your thoughts on this industry now?

Yuki: When I first started working on HR and workforce products, I often felt lost—especially during the first year. This field is incredibly complex, with processes that vary widely between companies. However, as I conducted more user interviews and engaged directly with customers, I started noticing common patterns across different organizations. Once I understood these underlying structures, it felt like solving a puzzle, which made the work fascinating.

Of course, there are many constraints, particularly when dealing with legal regulations. But rather than avoiding these challenges, facing them head-on always leads to solutions, which makes the work highly rewarding.

Soichi: When it comes to accessibility and multilingual support, there aren’t necessarily HR-specific challenges, but deepening our understanding of user needs is crucial.

For example, how should “年末調整” (nenmatsu chōsei) be translated? The direct translation is “Year-End Adjustment,” but since this system doesn’t exist overseas, foreign employees in Japan are often more familiar with the abbreviation “年調” (nenchō). Given its common use in the workplace, would it make more sense to simply write “Nencho” instead? These discussions show that translation isn’t just about words—it’s about understanding how terms are actually used in real-life work environments.

Usability as a Competitive Advantage, Supported by Various Metrics

You mentioned usability as a competitive advantage, and SmartHR is often praised for being easy to use. How do you define usability, and how is it implemented in the product?

Yuki: What does “usability” really mean? It’s not so easy to define. If we say it’s about being intuitive and easy to navigate, that assumes the user already has some prior knowledge. Otherwise, true usability would mean providing thorough documentation—like a manual explaining every function. But does that actually make something usable? Not necessarily.

Usability is highly subjective—what feels intuitive for one person may not be the same for another.

So, how do we evaluate usability objectively? At SmartHR, we’ve developed our own set of usability metrics, assigning scores to different aspects to assess and refine the product.

Can you tell us more about this approach?

Yuki: To ensure usability is measured effectively, we created and implemented a UI Design Usability Checklist as part of our design system. This checklist is based on the JIS X 25000 series (Japanese Industrial Standards for software quality), but we spent two years discussing and refining the criteria to suit our needs.

An important part of this initiative is that our product designers themselves define, document, and openly share these usability criteria. By doing so, we ensure that the metrics remain clear, reliable, and something that the entire team can align with and continuously improve upon.

_{*The JIS X 25000 series is part of the Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS) and defines criteria for assessing the quality of system and software products. It provides guidelines on the evaluation and measurement of quality within Japan’s industrial products, particularly in the context of software and systems.}

Yuki: That said, we still receive feedback that certain aspects of the product are not as user-friendly as they could be. There’s still a lot of room for improvement, and we’re committed to continuously refining our product.

What Do You Think Is the Most Important Aspect for Achieving Usability?

Yuki: Ultimately, users want all their systems to be unified. There are many SaaS products that specialize in specific areas, but managing and using them separately for each task can be difficult. Consolidating everything into one system is the most important form of usability for users. As this need has been increasing year by year, SmartHR has made the strategic decision to expand into a multi-product offering, and we’re currently pushing forward with this strategy.

Soichi: As the demand grows for a product that can cover a wide range of tasks comprehensively, it’s crucial to quickly expand the product’s scope as part of our business strategy. However, this often leads to trade-offs with quality. Within the development team, we have members who strongly resonate with the importance of accessibility and others who prioritize speed, which sometimes leads to differing opinions.

To tackle these challenges, we revised our accessibility quality standards. While quality standards typically define the required level of quality, we aimed to strike a balance by avoiding excessive quality or spending too much time on it. By managing the trade-off between speed and quality, we’ve developed a more efficient approach that aligns with our multi-product strategy.

Shifting from Autonomous Product Development to a Multi-Product Strategy

SmartHR is expanding into areas such as talent management and IT systems as part of its multi-product strategy. How are you aligning the overall vision and future direction of the products across different areas?

Yuki: Honestly, we’re surprised by how much is happening right now (laughs). It wasn’t so much a planned decision to expand, but more of a natural response to identified needs. We follow a decision-making process, but it’s a bottom-up approach where team members work on what they think is important, then align with leadership. We’re still figuring out if it’s the best approach, but it’s part of SmartHR’s strength and culture. Our processes like the UI checklist and accessibility standards, allow us to approach development consistently.

Soichi: Our focus is on employee data. As everyone sees the value in collecting this data and the synergies it can create, the overall vision naturally aligns.

Yuki: As we continue to expand, we’ve encountered various challenges. While SmartHR has excelled at developing individual products, the overall “usability” across our full suite of products, which is essential for a seamless multi-product experience, still needs work. This issue stems from the fact that products were developed independently so far. For instance, the “evaluation” process, which currently only fits within HR, should ideally integrate with functions like salary setting, recruitment, and promotions to provide a unified experience. That’s the challenge we’re addressing.

Soichi: The question is, how much should we simplify the user’s tasks and combine them into one product? Should we keep things general or make each product more specialized for specific tasks? While product managers are key in shaping strategy, I believe designers, who focus on usability, should also be part of these decisions, as “usability” is crucial for maintaining a competitive edge.

Driving adoption through accessibility and multilingual support.

SmartHR has put a large emphasis on accessibility and multilingual support. What is the background and purpose behind these efforts?

Soichi: In the B2B space, improving accessibility is crucial, as even a small portion of users being unable to access key features, like payroll, could lead to reconsidering product adoption. Unlike B2C, where addressing 1% of users impacts a small group, in B2B, creating exceptions for just a few users can significantly lower the product’s overall value.

Additionally, SmartHR has expanded beyond the IT industry into retail and foodservice, with a growing number of companies adopting the product. As the workforce diversifies, especially with statutory employment quotas for people with disabilities, accessibility has become even more important. By addressing accessibility, SmartHR enhances its reputation for being “easy to use,” reinforcing its competitive advantage.

These efforts contribute to establishing a competitive advantage, don’t they? How is this reflected in the product?

Soichi: The best example of this is probably the home screen. Within the language switching feature, we have implemented “Easy Japanese“, which is part of our multilingual and accessibility initiative. It embodies our philosophy and quality standards for developing accessible products at low cost.

“Easy Japanese” is an attempt to offer the product in a language that is easy to understand for foreign employees, as well as for individuals with mild intellectual disabilities or learning difficulties. By rephrasing difficult words, shortening sentences, and adding furigana to kanji, we aim to make the process more accessible to those who have difficulty reading Japanese, allowing them to complete various tasks.

It’s a very interesting initiative. What will you be working on going forward?

Soichi: With the UI design usability checklist and accessibility quality standards, we’ve been able to define what good is and how to create it. Moving forward, we want to expand this across the entire product and deliver high-quality results. Some of our UI doesn’t follow the latest screen patterns, so first, we want to focus on unifying those.

Designing Accessible Products for All: Supporting SmartHR’s Core Values

What kind of user feedback have you received as you’ve improved usability?

Soichi: One example of user feedback involves a blind manager who previously couldn’t use their HR evaluation tool. After implementing SmartHR, which supports browser screen readers, they were able to independently manage evaluations. The key change was that they no longer had to rely on others for help, enhancing both their productivity and autonomy.

Often, there tends to be a dynamic where those with disabilities end up in a position of asking for help. Products that require asking for help can reinforce this structure. However, tools that can be used independently without relying on others help maintain more equal relationships with colleagues. This example illustrates how SmartHR can change the way relationships are formed in the workplace, fostering more equality among employees.

Yuki: I don’t have any heartwarming stories like Soichi’s (laughs). Of course, it’s great when SmartHR is introduced to solve a specific issue, but our goal is for SmartHR to become so ingrained in the workflow that it’s just expected and doesn’t even cross anyone’s mind.

Finally, what are your future plans?

Soichi: Our mission is to make SmartHR accessible for everyone—older people, people with disabilities, and foreigners. This will enhance our competitive edge and make SmartHR more widely adopted.

Yuki: As SmartHR continues to expand, we’re still working on improving usability across our products. The challenge is becoming more complex as we aim to create a seamless experience across multiple products. Right now, we’re focusing on building a strong product design team to support this effort. With our emphasis on accessibility and UX, this is a difficult but exciting phase. We hope you find it as interesting as we do!

Special Thanks to: 

SmartHR