Ok, so where are these brilliant web sites that SAP should emulate?
In my day to day activities I often encounter a wide variety of User Interfaces.
Some are really ugly and almost impossible to navigate easily. Simple things like entering dates can provide a level of frustration that makes me want to throw things at the screen. Some have menus with annoying hover “capabilities” that I’m sure looked cool at design time, but when you’re a microsecond too slow with the mouse cause nothing but hassles.
Some aren’t too bad, but I can’t think of any that make me go “wow”.
Where are some examples of “wow” sites?
You can see following and more on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
I believe a good UX designer can create a truly stunning experience by using SAP NetWeaver supported UI technologies only, like Web Dynpro.
Stunning indeed ... but in most cases as a negative interpretation.
It can be truly stunning in a positive way as well, but like I said, it all depends on the craftmanship of your usability designer.
As an example, the Shell Online portal won the Best Intranet Design award in 2006.The platform used was SAP Enterprise Portal on NetWeaver 2004s, using custom developed iViews (HTMLB based, not even Web Dynpro...)
http://www.intranetdashboard.com/press/db_press_061114.aspx
Do you have some URLs or screenshots available?
Ta
Regarding the above, could you drop me an email?
One big problem I see coming (in fact, its a bit of a problem now) with web apps is how gracefully they break when the browser functionality it depends on isn't present.
Even breaking with a polite error message ('your browser doesn't support this functionality") would be better than some of the cases I seen. However, the perfect world would be where the Application Functionality is separate from the presentation (sidenote: ... which is what I thought it was all about anyway), so you don't necessarily get all the pretty drop downs and fade-ins when using an older browser, but at least you can see what you came to see 🙂
I use cool designs from wordpress for all the portal projects. I remove all the sections of the default framework page and only leave the masthead alone which is the header section and the rest has some of the coolest designs which has made every client go "woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow "
so lets say booooooooooooooo to SAP EP UI as I like to throw stones at my screen every time i see the blue default theme with some really sad UI's that we have seen ever since Enterprise Portal came into existence and lets all say yaaay!!!! to WordPress..
- portal eventing
- custom portal applications
- usability
- SAP provided portal applications, like ESS/MSS
- etc
- focus on the data and on the user.
- fancy UI is part of Javascript. If no Javascript is available, at least show the data: table with jquery on top of it.
- make it simple: make it fit on a screen. I like pages where I have to click through 10 screens and in the end I hit a timeout.
- put the page in context.
- fast: performance is king
- fit on screen: no scrollbars and no white spaces on the right ... while the rest is put in a tiny area with scrollbars. Like this textbox window I'm right now entering this message.
br,
Tobias
I know that's due to the session management but as from the guru (Jakob Nielsen http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990530.html) "The Back button is the lifeline of the Web user and the second-most used navigation feature (after following hypertext links)".
I add the link to a fantastic blog from Karin Tilliston "Why I believe in the power of ASUG Influence Councils Part 2 - The ASUG UI Influence Council" http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/20039. [original link is broken] [original link is broken]
Finally, it's not a pure web apps but the best ERP I have never saw is called LightSpeed, let's dream looking here http://www.xsilva.com/en/explore/manage-your-business.html ...
Sergio
Although I highly like the Tweakers.net site, I have some comments:
- The hover effect is of course already possible out-of-the-box, and with the Navigation API you could achieve extensive styling effects (i.e. have a look at the SDN navigation for instance)
- From a usability point of view, it is considered not-done to use 2 horizontal levels of navigation, and 3rd and deeper levels in a dropdown
Creating a great portal experience for business users depends on the business case. What is great for ESS doesn't have to work for PM or BI: a screen with little information is easier to display than 5 BI reports without the need to scroll down.
So, what makes a great portal experience? The navigation? The constant usage of UI elements (define to use datatables for every table and never change that), the same way to present data, speed, runs on every client (desktop, mobile)?