Simplifying Application Development and Drive User Adoption, a customer case study

In my last blog, I covered the new Fiori for iOS SDK library. In this blog, I will cover some of the tools SAP provides to simplify application development. This blog will be based on a case study that I was involved in earlier this year in my role as a global solution architect in our custom development team (which I really enjoyed). To provide you further context on this case study, this customer had already adopted the Fiori MyInbox application. 

The application was functional, performance was an issue since the contracted SI had not taken advantage of optimisation features such as enabling compression of files, enabling caching on the gateway server and using the correct libraries (with Fiori, we update libraries on a fortnightly basis). Even though we identified these issues, the customer still asked for an application that was mobile first. 

The reality is, the SI did not ask the customer what they would like to see, just implement the vanilla solution without engaging the user. This might reduce cost, however the final solution is unusable by the target audience, why develop applications that users do not like and not want to use. If you look at statistics (Figure 1), 70% of organisations fail to get value of their software due to poor user adoption.

Figure 1: Survey of 159 IT buyers and software decision makers, Sandhill Group & TSIA

The key to usable software is engaging your users early. The sooner you can provide screens so they can provide feedback, the less chance of change further down the development cycle. It’s financially effective to understand the needs of the end user, iterate on the necessary designs before handing it to development. Once the solution is developed and deployed, its exponentially more expensive to make changes to the application (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Source: Forrester Research, State of Customer Experience

The direct customer in question desired a more personable app, an app that he can bond with by including branding, their name and even a welcome message. However, before I let my creativity take over, I wanted to gain a better understanding on which fields and data the user needed to visualise. 

The user wanted to minimise the amount of data being displayed since the original Fiori app was designed for a desktop experience. I used SAP’s Build tool since with this tool, you can simply capture screens, create surveys and utilise many other features to assist design applications. Once I had captured the screens, I placed them in a Build project, created hotspots so you can flow through the screens. Linking the screens took less than 5 minutes, I used Build to create a design survey (this is a copy of the survey). 

I sent the survey to a list of users and waited for their feedback. Users can choose to stay anonymous, they provided some great insight into what they would like to see. In Figure 3, you see the result of the survey, how many users participated, how many comments have been provided, how long the users took to complete the survey and how they felt working with the User Experience.

Figure 3: The MyInbox UX survey result

 The survey tool provides users the ability to select a position in the page and add their comment. They can also select how they feel, if they are happy or sad when using the screen. This capability is provided through the browser, no extra plug-ins are required. You can also filter the responses based on emotion so you can focus on the unhappy results first (Figure 4). 

Figure 4: Analysing the survey results 

Another nice Build feature is the ability to capture screen clicks. This allows the screen designer/developer to identify where the users click select and remove any unnecessary controls/links to simplify the screen and the screen flow.

Figure 5: Heatmap to identify where users are interacting

The customer feedback was collated and we identified through the workshop that they preferred a mobile first app, reduced screen elements and greater performance. My recommendation was to develop a Fiori for iOS application since it would provide the most effective user experience and take advantage of native features such as fingerprint authentication, offline and push notifications. 

We developed a welcome screen that greets the user (an easy slice of code that greets the user based on time). The ability to identify how many items need to be approved, in this instance, the CIO only wanted to see Purchase Requisitions, Service Entry Sheets and Invoice Entry Sheets. Once the user enters the detail screen, they only see who has requested the approval, for which customer, that date it was submitted and the cost. Finally, we allow the user to select the item and view the physical attachment to validate the given approval item (Figure 6).

Figure 6: The new MyInbox approval design

The next step was for our Custom Development team to interact with the customer to identify a simpler approach. The great team under Naresh Shinde, including Chirag Chauhan and Vikas Swarankar identifier an easier approach on how the senior executives can quickly navigate and approve their requests. The result, was an application I like to call, the “Tinder of approvals”. The team simplified the User Experience by providing a swipe right for approve, swipe left to reject (Figure 7).  

Figure 7: New MyInbox with swipe approvals/reject.

The team also simplified the interaction by integrating Siri. As a user, you can use certain keywords and the app performs different actions. They keyword “Detail” would open up a detail screen, the keyword “Attachment” would open the attachments and the keyword “History” would allow you to view the workflow history (Figure 8).  

Figure 8: Siri integration to simplify interaction

This was demonstrated to the customer which they loved. In fact, the customer was so impressed, it was demonstrated to their global team and won a global innovation award. 

This was completed in weeks, not months using the SAP Cloud Platform since we used the Build tool for prototyping and the Fiori for iOS SDK to quickly develop the front end solution. If you’d like to develop similar solutions for your team or customers, come and attend our Fiori for iOS SDK at the SAUG in Sydney on 4th and in NZ for the 6th. There is also an OpenSAP course: SAP Fiori for iOS - Build Your First Native Mobile App. 

Alternatively, there are many partners or SAP CD under Oliver Betz globally and Stefan Hoberger in APJ that can assist with resources. My next blog will focus on creating an immersive experience using the Fiori for iOS SDK and ARKit.