Simplifying how end users interact with your application interfaces is key to boosting the success of your project. Listening to the needs of your end-users, we can take a design-led approach to deliver projects for you. By taking this approach, our user experience practice provides solutions that we ‘know’ will work, rather than building first and ‘hoping’ they work.
When we talk about User Experience, we are typically looking at providing simplified interactions and transactions on user interfaces. This involves two symbiotic design services. User Experience Design (UX) helps define how a user interacts with and experiences a product, system or service. This ensures end-user needs are met, and reduces the need for costly redesign. Whilst User Interface Design (UI) covers accurate and consistent layout of components and elements, including any branding requirements for portals. This ensures the User Interface has elements that are consistent, easy to access and understand for users. For simplification, we typically refer to the overall service as ‘User Experience Design’.
Our User Experience Design Services can be applied in a targeted way to improve user interface adoption across the entire suite of SAP products (S4, SuccessFactors, Ariba, C4C and SAP Analytics Cloud).
When speaking to organisations, we typically see numerous challenges they are having, which could be down to poor UX. Issues spanning technology, business needs, and ultimately user needs are not being met.
Following a user-focused process, we deliver experiences designed to suit your target personas. Everything we do has to be user-focused, as designers we are looking at things through the end users’ eyes. Our process involves working with you to understand and develop your user personas. Everything that we do from a user experience perspective is directly related to the end-user needs. Here, we are identifying the needs and frustrations of the typical user. This ultimately ensures we identify needs from your users perspective so that whatever we do from here on in, ensures adoption, efficiency and user loyalty.
Here we are mapping out a visual representation of the flow of the end-user experience. Our mapping process can involve simple user flows, or more complex maps that consider users feelings at certain points in the journey, their questions and their pain points. It helps us identify where functionality will fit, and help guide the User Interface development. Ultimately this helps you visualise and agree with the potential process flow for sign off.
This is where we start to build the experiences in wireframes or working prototypes and through an iterative process, we discover what works and what doesn’t work through user testing. This ensures we design something that we KNOW works rather than building something and HOPING it works. This step in the process allows all of the stakeholders to agree on the way the interfaces and interactions will work, prior to any building work. So that we remove potential redesign cycles at the end of a project.
The next part of the process is the component Design System. If everything ultimately ends up being delivered on a User Interface, then we need to ensure consistency across all of the ‘jigsaw pieces’ or components. Certainly, if it’s an on-brand portal then all of those components need to adhere to brand guidelines. If it’s UI5, then those jigsaw pieces exist but we need to make sure the right ones are chosen from the point of view of the end-user, and ultimately positioned correctly and accurately to ensure the best overall experience. This ultimately ensures we future proof consistency across any new page designs for the next phases of projects.
The next stage is to create all of the screen layouts in both desktop and mobile, and tablet where applicable. The UI team will take the UX wireframes that have already been signed off by the customer, along with the design system that has also been signed off. From these, they create the screens to hand over to the development team to ensure they have all of the information they need to deliver consumer class interfaces without the risk of costly redesign cycles. In a perfect world, it could be argued that this stage isn’t needed as we have wireframes and a design system, but experience tells us this is a critical part of the design and build process as it gives the development team the foundation to build the screens to accurate specifications.
Working as part of the overall delivery team, our User Experience practice is tightly coupled with SAP Solution Architects, Functional and Front-End Development teams who understand your systems. De-coupling design from technical build can pose numerous issues and inevitably results in costly redesign cycles and over extended timelines.
Interested in finding out more about our SAP User Experience Design Services?
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