SAP Labs
Roles: UX, UI, Prototyping
Type: SAP Energy Analysis solution and
Asset Intelligence Network
Team: XFT
Year: 2018
Overview
At SAP, I worked in the Utilities team, where I got the opportunity to design two new products that focused on the Cloud platform and IoT. I worked in an agile environment and was in a scrum team where we had a bi-weekly sprint.
* Due to legal reasons, I can't show completed work online until the projects are released, but I would love to have a conversation about my overall experience and speak more in-depth. Contact me.
UX Designer at SAP
Joining SAP Labs in the Fall of 2017, I worked on SAP Energy Analysis solution, which utilizes IoT and Cloud to aggregate specific data. The goal for the team is to provide practical but easily digestible data that translates into business intelligence while maintaining SAP's design guideline.
On this project, I was the lead designer for the version one release, where I was in charge of designing the minimum viable product and specific features.
With unique use cases in the Energy Analysis project, I had to create custom components that aren’t included in the design guideline and had to get approval from the global design team for implementation. It is to help similar use cases in the future and the development team.
In addition to working on SAP Energy Analysis solution, I also worked on SAP Asset Intelligence Network. On this project, I worked closely with the product owner, Riddhi Mody, and senior designer, Khalid Abdullah.
With the project being in its initial phase, I was in charge of wireframing and prototyping for user testing.
I had to work with both Apple’s human interface guideline and SAP’s Fiori iOS guideline because the project is in collaboration with Apple.
Image 1. SAP Fiori iOS Example
Image 2. SAP Fiori Responssive Web Example
Main Takeaways
Working with a design system
During my time at SAP, I utilized a design system for the first time. A common struggle that I came across was when no component satisfies the project's use case. It was a challenge because it is ideal to use existing elements to get a cohesive brand experience between all applications and be reusable in the development process. With this in mind, I concluded that the design would need a custom component after multiple explorations and meetings with the team.
Since I am working on a specific product within SAP, there is a process that I had to go through to get approval from the global design team for any custom component in a product.
I began laying out the project use cases to define the purpose of the new components through detailed documentation.
Created multiple components while taking into consideration of the existing patterns to develop interchangeable and reusable parts.
Presented to the global design team with documentation and features to align with SAP's design guidelines and be potentially implemented in the next version of the design system to assist other product teams with similar use cases.
Working with a design system, I learned to iterate rapidly and pursue continuous feedback. It allowed me to propose my solution regularly with countless iterations while reflecting on the feedback about the work. This environment helped me to work swiftly while also contribute to future product implementations and knowledge transfer.
After many months of working on the projects, I was able to get my design to pass the final phase and push it towards implementation. It was a huge milestone that I was able to accomplish with my team and my design career.