Have you considered a wooden deck? I had pretty much the same thing you did behind my house when I bought it. (12X12 cement slab) My sliding back door had a step down to the patio. I dug and cemented in footings, and built a treated wooden deck over the top of the cement, about a foot above it to match up with the bottom of the door. Completed it over the course of 3 weekends, then sealed and stained it on the 4th weekend.
It's not that hard to do, if you wanted to tackle it yourself. Depending on the size of the deck you would want to build, it shouldn't be too overly expensive to build. Even if you hire it done. If you don't have much experience doing things like this, I'd recommend having it built. They would have it done in a few days. You could also do a composite deck. Looks like wood, but is more expensive. Less upkeep, though.
The nice thing about a wooden deck is you can have pretty much any design you want done. If it's close to the ground, you don't need railings. Can make steps down to the yard all around. Built in seating if you do rails, etc...