Not just the domain of the consumer app any more, user experience (UX) is a key concern in the enterprise. So what does a great user experience look like, and what is SAP doing to lift its game in this area? Freya Purnell reports.
At first glance, it might not seem like pornography and a great UX have much in common. But as Justice Potter Stewart famously noted in the US Supreme Court, that hardcore porn is hard to define, but “I know it when I see it”, so it is with UX – we know it when we see it, or at least, when we use it.
One of the issues with identifying a great UX is that it depends on which user is being targeted with a solution, and what they are trying to achieve in their interaction. A manager who wants to analyse leads and purchase levels will have different requirements for UX than a maintenance worker who simply wants to record the results of an inspection. For the manager, visualisation and rendering of graphics might be key, whereas the maintenance worker might be happy with a black-and-white screen, as long as the buttons are easy to press and there aren’t too many clicks to get to the fields they want.
Similarly, in the SAP world, the UX needs of a casual user looking to lodge a timesheet and a power user accustomed to navigating the wilds of the SAP Graphical User Interface (GUI) are very different.
These differences show why designing UX is all about having a deep understanding of the user.
And while an attractive interface is often a key component of a great UX, it’s not all about what you see – a common misconception, according to Simon Kemp, national solution lead for user empowerment, PLAUT IT Australia.
“We like to latch on to the visual, but the whole user experience can have a lot to do with things that aren’t visual at all – elements like responsiveness or the speed of the system can either enhance or detract from the user experience,” Kemp says.
The quality of the UX also can relate to the ease of navigation, according to David Simpson, practice manager, emerging solutions, UXC Oxygen.
“Ideally, within three clicks you want people to be able to get to the information they need,” he says.
SAP’s track record with user experience
It’s no secret that for all its strengths in business process and integration of solutions, UX has not been SAP’s strong suit.
A decade ago, the SAP GUI was standard across its products, and customers agreed that this commonality was good enough. But in recent years, as consumer digital expectations have shot sky-high, and some of SAP’s second-tier competitors have brought solutions with more user-friendly experiences to market, SAP been under pressure to improve its UX. There are also functional, not just aesthetic, reasons for SAP to make its products more intuitive.
“There is quite a lot of training and a lot of knowledge needed to get the most out of the system,” Kemp says, adding that internal change may also be driving a change in SAP’s tune.
“There is probably a generation of people who are getting into positions of influence within the company now that themselves really believe that a better user experience can drive a better bottom-line outcome for the company.”
Key developments from SAP
SAP has certainly shifted the focus firmly onto improving the user experience, but as Tony de Thomasis, SAP technical specialist, SAPWorks points out, the company is now faced with the prospect of what to do with 300,000 SAP GUI streams across the entire landscape.
“It’s not something that can be done overnight. You can’t just hire 1000 programmers and rewrite everything in HTML5,” de Thomasis says.
The need for change has led SAP to create a three-pronged user strategy: Enable, Renew, and New.
1. Enable
This is an initiative to enable customers to improve specific scenarios. In the past, to improve the user interface in these scenarios, SAP offered Floorplan Manager, which was part of Webdynpro ABAP, or the Netweaver Business Client, to improve the way the GUI links to non-SAP transactions by providing a single way to view multiple UIs in the one stream.
“Most recently, they have provided a really exciting piece of software called SAP Screen Personas, which is a way to skin an existing transaction to personalise it without having any programming knowledge,” de Thomasis says.
Kemp agrees that the recently released version three of Screen Personas is a useful development.
“Given the fact that the majority of SAP customers use the standard SAP blue screen, Personas is targeted directly at that group and simplifying the user experience on top of the SAP GUI. I think we could see a lot happening in that space,” he says.
2. Renew
In this initiative, SAP has chosen the most widely used scenarios for its customers and provided HTML-based streams using Fiori.
Fiori, which is based on HTML5 or as SAP calls it, UI5, began as a set of mobile applications, but has come to refer to a style of programming or a design approach with some key rules attached. For example, the application needs to be utilise responsive design, be role-based, and easy to use.
“They have a rule called the 113 rule, which all Fiori apps must abide by, which says it should be designed for one user, one use case and a maximum of three streams,” de Thomasis says.
An aspect to consider if customers are looking to take advantage of these capabilities is they must have the latest version of SAP GUI (740) and NetWeaver Business Client version 5.
3. New
SAP is also providing a number of tools to generate HTML5 code, which can be used in situations where the customer wants to build consumer grade applications.
“You can use something like the Eclipse IDE, to build your own from scratch, or you can go onto the SAP Service Marketplace and purchase some prebuilt UI5 apps, either from SAP or through third parties,” de Thomasis says. One of the most popular apps at the moment is the Customer Financial Factsheet.
While Kemp believes the introduction of Fiori has been important, it is now being overused in SAP’s marketing.
“Just in the way everything became HANA, everything is becoming Fiori-ised,” he says, adding that there are plenty of other UI offerings from SAP, such as the NetWeaver Business Client.
“While it hasn’t really seen huge adoption, we have seen more companies moving towards that as they realise the need to incorporate both the old and the new within a single user experience,” Kemp says.
Kemp also points back to Webdynpro as a useful tool for personalisation and improving UX – something he finds isn’t often used, leading to overly complex screens being given to users.
“Webdynpro does still look very much like a business application, but it comes back to the point that it’s not all about visual design. You can build a really good user experience using Webdynpro, and you could build a really bad user experience using Fiori and UI5. It’s not just about the technology,” he says.
So will this new UX strategy be successful for SAP?
While many SAP projects these days have an objective to be as standard as possible and avoid customisation, this might be at odds with designing a good user experience, which requires customisation.
“In one way, it’s easier to start from scratch, go to your users and design the whole UI and experience, but at the end of the day, you are buying out of the box and you have to try and shape that into something that’s more usable,” Kemp says.
“Hopefully over time, SAP will make that easier with the technology, and you could see some of that happening with Fiori and UI5, and being more open, allowing for a faster innovation cycle,” Kemp says.
Another issue customers must consider with UX is browser selection. Supporting all browsers will be very difficult as they all have their own idiosyncracies, so SAP has recommended Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 11. Depending on which browser the customer decides to go with, there could be a need to upgrade the browser, which may have an impact on Java runtime, security patches, or operating system versions – all aspects which need to be weighed up.
Why it’s worth it
So upgrading your user experience with SAP is perhaps not as easy as plugging in a Fiori app. But there are good reasons why it’s worth giving it a go.
Users are more likely to adopt solutions that are attractive and intuitive, and bring productivity benefits. Particularly for SAP systems that may have been challenging for casual users to get their heads around, providing an accessible alternative will increase usage.
“There are some really good workflow solutions available for managers to approve purchasing or leave, but at the end of the day, infrequent users haven’t wanted to log on and use the SAP system. So if we can give them something which runs on a tablet or phone and is easy and enjoyable to use, it’s a lot easier to get them to be part of these processes, and we don’t need people pulling information together and emailing it to the manager,” says Simpson.
This is true for field workers, who may typically have used paper-based systems instead of complex SAP interfaces. Being able to mobilise and simplify these processes brings benefits in terms of reducing double-handling, being able to collect information directly from the source, and in data quality.
By providing a more intuitive UX, there are also significant benefits to be gained in reducing training and support costs.
“We use online banking without having to do a week’s worth of training on how to use the system, but very few people would be able to use SAP without that. Training is expensive to run – you’ve got to have the facilities, the trainer, and take people out of their jobs,” Kemp says.
Finding the right resources for your SAP UX projects
One of the challenges for undertaking UX projects in an SAP environment is that traditionally developers and functional consultants have mostly been configuring an existing user interface from SAP. But as highlighted earlier, UX design is more than just look and feel, it’s also process and interaction. So how do you build your UX dream team?
Covering the HTML5 development skill-set is one aspect, but design skills are also key, according to de Thomasis.
“Can someone actually use a methodology like Design Thinking and design a set of stream? I am not sure how customers are going to get in front of the need for design skills, so that could be a great area in the future,” he says.
Kemp himself comes from an SAP Portal background, and he believes this has given him an edge in the UX space, given its focus on the end user.
“With the Portal being an interface technology, it was one of the areas where we would get a lot of user interaction. We would sit with users and think about how they are going to access the system, what the menu structure should be like for them to find what they need, and how are we going to provide help, probably more so than other areas within SAP,” Kemp says.
Working to understand the UX requires a range of soft skills – interviewing users or gathering requirements, doing paper prototypes, building up personas – and these will be just as important as understanding business process and SAP technology to produce a great UX.
“The solutions that work the best have a good mix of all that working together,” Kemp says. “You’re not just focusing on functionality and technology.”
For more information about SAP’s approach to user experience, check out: http://experience.sap.com/ and https://apps.support.sap.com/innovation-discovery/index.html.
Tips for improving user experience
- Don’t describe a UX for yourself; make sure you put yourself in the shoes of the user. “That’s one of the things you’ve got to be careful of when you are working on projects. Subject matter experts might be giving you the requirements for the end users – design by proxy – and you need to be very careful that you are not designing the solution for that one person,” says Kemp.
- Where possible, make the user UX functionally-orientated and role-based – and personalisation doesn’t hurt.
- While prototyping and testing to get user feedback is helpful in trying to reach an ideal UX, there is a risk of diminishing returns. “It’s probably important to have a few cycles of redesign, go back to the user and get feedback, but at a certain point, you have to look at the amount of progress you are making for the time you are spending on it. There is probably not only one workable design – it’s a continuum, so the idea is to get more towards the good experience than the bad,” Kemp says.
Why UX is a make or break for mobility projects
According to a survey by enterprise mobility company Kony, 50 per cent of designers and developers say their projects fail to lock or get approved because of user interface issues.
The ‘Bridging the Gap: Mobile App Design and Development’ survey said a traditional approach to mobile application development for enterprises causes problems specifically around user interface and user experience.
“CIOs are faced with the challenge of rapidly delivering mobile applications for their businesses, and this survey sheds light on one of the biggest hurdles: business users, designers and developers don’t see eye to eye when it comes to user experience and interface design, which can cause costly delays and mobile app failures, leaving the business looking for a better answer,” said Dave Shirk, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Kony.
The research found that the three main reasons for changes to the user interface are because the design never gets locked; the stakeholder identified issues in the user interface once they got to use the working application; and the user interface design failed to address one or more functional requirements.
Moreover, nearly 40 per cent of developers said it takes 25 to 50 per cent of addition development effort to address change requests that impact the user interface.
The answer? You guessed it: Start with design.
“Mobile app design is often overlooked in the development process, but companies are finding that most mobile apps fail because of lack of user adoption caused by poor design and experience. Enterprises should design their app with a mobile perspective when it comes to look and feel of the app.”
This article was first published in Inside SAP Summer 2014/15.
