Johns Hopkins: A Path to a Better User Experience

Johns Hopkins is not only an innovator in their use of information technology, but, in serving with the University’s educational mission, is eager to share their knowledge with the broader community. They speak at SAP business and technical conferences such as SAPPHIRE NOW and SAP TechEd, along with presenting in webcasts.

In a recent ASUG webcast, Zack Rose, Project Manager at Johns Hopkins shared his user experience transformation story which was supported by SAP Fiori and SAP Screen Personas. The team was aiming to modernize the user experience (UX) to a more contemporary look to provide users with the best and most efficient experience. The vision for the new UX was to address the user frustrations, simplify screens, open up the doors for the next SAP S/4HANA release, and to start the Change Management process for SAP users for the next software upgrade.

(Photo: The Launchpad)

Johns Hopkins found that switching over from tabs in the SAP GUI to tiles with the SAP Fiori launchpad not only provided a more modern and updated look but also provided visible information on the tiles that saved users time. Johns Hopkins saw that the SAP Fiori design made the Travel and Expense Reimbursement process much easier for users to complete. Alongside with SAP Fiori, the Johns Hopkins team used SAP Screen Personas to create user friendly screens quickly and easily.

“The SAP Fiori user experience made the procurement process much more intuitive. We looked at how people used SAP for purchasing and have started to redesign the screens around that,” said Zack Rose, Project Manager at Johns Hopkins. “SAP Screen Personas made it easy to create screens for each scenario and simplify them to the bare essentials.”

By simplifying the Travel and Expense Reimbursement process, Johns Hopkins believed that users could learn how to use the app like any other phone app. The new applications created were created so that training time for end users to learn the application was completely diminished.

(The Launchpad with personal settings expanded)

Overall, the Johns Hopkins information technology team was able to improve their Travel and Expense Reimbursement application by simplifying the screens and making the process more personalized to the user.

“Users are in and out of the expense management system quickly. For most situations, they fill in their expense amount and justification and they are done. No one wants to go back to the complex screens that took longer to complete and often risked rejection because of data entry errors,” said Rose.

Watch the ASUG webcast: “UX: Johns Hopkins: Path to a Better User Experience” (registration required) for details about this great example of how UX simplification resulted in a win for the business and happier users.