Understanding the New User Experience

It does not matter how good an application is if the user experience (UX) is poor. In the past, user interfaces all suffered from the same problem: they were too complicated. The main reason for this is that interfaces were often designed around the business function and not around the person. The result was a cluttered screen that tried to provide many features to many different job roles.

For example, consider a sales order screen: how many job roles does this screen support? You might assume one, the sales order entry clerk. However, the reality is that the same screen is used by a large number of people who need to either check information or make adjustments to an existing order. Some examples are as follows:

• A quality assurance worker in the delivery department needs to release a blocked item in the order.

• A finance person needs to adjust tax assignments.

• A salesperson needs to adjust discounts.

• A marketing employee needs to apply promotion codes.

• A project manager needs to check that costs have been assigned to the correct project phases.

Each of these people could find themselves using the same screen, but only a very small part of the screen. The screen ensures that they all work hard to navigate to the specific area they need, ignoring the options they do not need. Lots of clicks are required for very little high-value interaction.

The use of IT and electronic devices is no longer reserved for a group of expert users; it has spread throughout society to all social groups. People need high-performing hardware that can support a variety of software products, with different scope and potential. There is added pressure to supply an easy-to-use solution to the end user.

The main drivers of this development are smartphones and tablets, with their easy-to-use and flexible user interfaces (UIs). The focus of these UIs is no longer on huge functionality but rather a comfortable user experience (UX), which puts the focus on the consumer. Business software must adapt and transform to turn this trend to its maximum advantage for the roles of an enterprise. In this evolution, the UI plays an important role.

With regard to SAP software products, the challenge is to keep a clear view and to understand the overall SAP strategy in the area of UX. Furthermore, it is important to have a clear understanding of the goals and target groups of each UI technology, to avoid mistakes and frustrated users.

In the beginning, it is helpful to clarify the terminology used. A good place to start is with the terms UI and UX.

Interface Focus

Contrary to traditional interface design, the design approach with SAP Fiori is that the focus is now on the job role, rather than the function. SAP Fiori applications are always role-based. There are many applications to choose from, and they are organized in easy-to-use catalogs, supplied by SAP S/4HANA. You simply need to assign the roles to the users.

SAP Fiori brings a consistent, harmonized look and feel across all SAP products. It's embedded intelligence brings user guidance through Machine Learning and dynamic home pages.

It has integrated, cross-product and cross-device integration through comprehensive and adaptive home-pages, a digital assistant and notifications for users.

A key theme of SAP S/4HANA is simplification, and this certainly applies to the user experience (UX). We use the term user experience, rather than user interface (UI), because we need to consider the overall experience of the user, rather than just the look of the screen. For example, if you go to a restaurant that has good food presentation but the service is poor, you would say that the overall experience was not good, and you would not be keen to repeat it.

It is important to provide not only a great-looking UI, but also features that help the user become more productive, resulting in a good overall experience. This is what SAP Fiori delivers.

SAP Fiori is a completely new UX, rather than an upgrade to any existing interface, such as SAP GUI, SAP Portal, or SAP Business Client. It works on any device that allows users to have the same experience, regardless of the device they choose to use. They can set up a basic sales order in the office using their desktop, then visit the customer to complete the configuration and agree pricing using a tablet. SAP Fiori provides the same look, feel, and productivity features on all devices.

SAP Fiori applications are designed using a methodology called design thinking, which is a user-centric and solution-based approach to software and user interface design.

SAP Fiori applications can be classified into different types. Examples include the following:

• Transactional:

  These follow an optimal design for fast transaction processing, such as purchase receipt entry.

• Analytical:

  These provide the tools required for analysis, graphs, charts, exploration, data mining, and drill-down.

• Factsheet:

  These provide a 360 degree view of all key information related to a business subject. For example, enter an employee name and all information about that employee appears, such as working hours, vacation, pay, performance, manager, and awards.

When a developer creates a new SAP Fiori application, they begin by selecting a template that is based on transactional, analytical, or factsheet, so they have a consistent look and feel.

The three most common types of SAP Fiori app are as follows:

• Transactional apps provide the classic approach for functions of a business system. They are available for SAP S/4HANA and Business Suite on any database.

• Analytical apps use the analytical capabilities of SAP HANA to provide insights in business data. They are available for SAP S/4HANA and Business Suite on HANA.

• Fact Sheet apps use the enterprise search capabilities of SAP HANA to provide search results. They are available for SAP S/4HANA and Business Suite on HANA.

The SAP Fiori Launchpad is aligned with the two main UI clients: SAP Enterprise Portal (available) and SAP NetWeaver Business Client (planned). Alignment with the SAP Enterprise Portal is achieved by running the SAP Fiori Launchpad UX within the SAP Enterprise Portal (also known as the SAP Fiori framework page), while also leveraging established portal infrastructure and best practices.

The SAP Fiori Launchpad can be visually adapted and customized using the UI Theme Designer. It is designed according to the simple and intuitive SAP Fiori user experience, while supporting established UI technologies (such as Web Dynpro ABAP and SAP GUI for HTML).