Led by our new Chief Design Officer Benedikt Lehnert, we are transforming our design and development culture here at SAP, to focus even more strongly on helping people get their work done faster, more easily, and with better outcomes. If you haven’t already read about it, then do read his blog post before continuing here:
As Ben outlines there, we are changing how we design and develop applications, with a focus on incorporating much more feedback and insights from our users. That is why we are, for the first time, shipping a preview rather than a final version of the new SAP Fiori visual theme Horizon, along with channels for collecting feedback from users.
This preview is available to SAP Cloud customers starting with the 2111 release, which became available this week. It is also available as a preview for developers using SAPUI5 in the SAP Business Technology Platform, as outlined at the end of this post.
If you are interested in participating in the preview, you can register using this link to let your users try it out and provide feedback:
We offer you two ways to give feedback:
If you want, you can choose both approaches, i.e. give all your users the opportunity to try it out in the system as well as selecting some users for the desirability study.
You are probably wondering what the new theme looks like – here is a one minute video showing the new theme, how you can switch it on and off, and what the built-in survey looks like:
As Benedikt Lehnert outlined in his post, Horizon embodies a new set of design principles. As a result of these, the new Horizon theme introduces signature design elements that focus on helping people get their job done faster and effortlessly. What are these elements and how do you benefit as an SAP S/4HANA Cloud customer? With the planned final version of Horizon, we are
You can give us feedback on most of these with the Horizon preview. The above video showed how the Horizon preview compares with the current Quartz theme for a user in your sales department; here are two examples for users in procurement, where they have switched on the preview of the new design:
Note that the preview available with SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2111 is available for SAP Fiori apps built with SAPUI5 as well as classic applications built with WebDynpro for ABAP. Our current plans foresee classic applications using SAP GUI for HTML supporting the Horizon visual theme as a preview version in SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2202.
Developers can try out the Horizon preview on SAP Business Technology Platform with the SAPUI5 versions 1.93.3 and 1.96.0. Note that the theme is marked as “Experimental”, in other words not released for productive use. The preview is also available for UI Integration Cards as well as the UI5 Web Components. To find out more, have a look at this blog post:
Find out more about the new SAP approach by reading Benedikt Lehnert’s blog post, or by listening to him talking about it at TechEd:
To keep up to date with news on SAP Fiori, check out the blog posts and questions and answers via
As Ben outlines there, we are changing how we design and develop applications, with a focus on incorporating much more feedback and insights from our users. That is why we are, for the first time, shipping a preview rather than a final version of the new SAP Fiori visual theme Horizon, along with channels for collecting feedback from users.
This preview is available to SAP Cloud customers starting with the 2111 release, which became available this week. It is also available as a preview for developers using SAPUI5 in the SAP Business Technology Platform, as outlined at the end of this post.
Preview for SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2111 customers
If you are interested in participating in the preview, you can register using this link to let your users try it out and provide feedback:
We offer you two ways to give feedback:
- Directly in the system: you can enable the preview so that users can directly toggle between the current design and the new design, as you can see in the video below. When using the new design, they can give feedback directly in the system through a built-in survey based on Qualtrics® software.
- Participating in a moderated desirability study, where SAP design experts will go through examples of the new design with each of those users who you nominate in a 1:1 call, and collect your users’ feedback.
If you want, you can choose both approaches, i.e. give all your users the opportunity to try it out in the system as well as selecting some users for the desirability study.
You are probably wondering what the new theme looks like – here is a one minute video showing the new theme, how you can switch it on and off, and what the built-in survey looks like:
As Benedikt Lehnert outlined in his post, Horizon embodies a new set of design principles. As a result of these, the new Horizon theme introduces signature design elements that focus on helping people get their job done faster and effortlessly. What are these elements and how do you benefit as an SAP S/4HANA Cloud customer? With the planned final version of Horizon, we are
- Improving information hierarchy through simplified header bar, account menu, search and side navigation.
- Creating a sense of focus by leveraging contrast and white space to give room for content to stand out.
- Updating our color palette to feel modern and fresh while meeting WCAG AA accessibility standards by default.
- Introducing a new icon set that communicates clearly and feels modern across all platforms.
- Using bold typography on page headers to create a natural information hierarchy.
- Simplifying the overall aesthetic for UI elements to make them easy to understand and interact with.
- Introducing rounded corners to create a friendly, approachable and modern look that invites people to get started with their work.
- Taking a mobile-first approach to ensure all experiences work the same across devices and reduce learning curve for end-users.
You can give us feedback on most of these with the Horizon preview. The above video showed how the Horizon preview compares with the current Quartz theme for a user in your sales department; here are two examples for users in procurement, where they have switched on the preview of the new design:
Figure 1: An example of the My Home page on the SAP Fiori launchpad for a purchaser, with the new design (Horizon preview) switched on.
Figure 2: The Procurement Overview app with the new design (Horizon preview) switched on.
Note that the preview available with SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2111 is available for SAP Fiori apps built with SAPUI5 as well as classic applications built with WebDynpro for ABAP. Our current plans foresee classic applications using SAP GUI for HTML supporting the Horizon visual theme as a preview version in SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2202.
Horizon preview for SAPUI5 developers on SAP Business Technology Platform
Developers can try out the Horizon preview on SAP Business Technology Platform with the SAPUI5 versions 1.93.3 and 1.96.0. Note that the theme is marked as “Experimental”, in other words not released for productive use. The preview is also available for UI Integration Cards as well as the UI5 Web Components. To find out more, have a look at this blog post:
Further information
Find out more about the new SAP approach by reading Benedikt Lehnert’s blog post, or by listening to him talking about it at TechEd:
- Blog post: The Experience Mindset: Redesigning How We Build Products at SAP.
- TechEd session: Dive into the User Experience and Design Journey of SAP Solutions.
To keep up to date with news on SAP Fiori, check out the blog posts and questions and answers via
- SAP Managed Tags:
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