6 ms·

SAP wouldn't be that disheartening to use if it weren't so damn slow and if UI/UX wasn't from the 90s.

spectramax 7y ago
I love the SAP UI - yea, its the 90's when UI was far superior than today's whitespace filled, shadow-less buttons, complete lack of skeumorphic elements, magenta gradients and huge typography - See Windows 95 UI: https://twitter.com/tuomassalo/status/978717292023500805 https://twitter.com/tuomassalo/status/978717292023500805 It is dense, extremely clear and consice. I agree with the slowness though.
- meddlepal 7y ago
  I feel like there continues to be a huge disconnect between UI designers and their users. I'm a power user so I am not the best person to ask for UX advice, but I talk to people all the time that just wish they still had the classic Windows 9x UI's and things more or less were "boring". Reminds me a little bit of a statement about how Taxi drivers can tell you what works architecturally better than an actual architect when it comes to ground floor interaction.
  - spectramax 7y ago
    That's because contemporary designers are obsessed with trends, frameworks and aesthetics. When Dieter Rams designed Braun products, he didn't have a UI framework. He deeply thought about interaction and feedback to the user. Contemporary UI trends bother me except one: websites like drewdevault.com and text.npr.com are refreshing.
  - cm2187 7y ago
    That’s the problem with software. There are two categories of software: software that their developers use themselves, and software made for other people. Visual Studio is the prime example of a software made by people who use it, it continuously improves (minus a few hiccups), it is made for the most used functionalities to be at your fingertips, it doesn’t hide stuff in layers of submenus, etc. The list is long of software made for others, and the general rule is “fuck it, good enough”. This is also why I believe the Windows 8/10 developers must be working on macs.
    - reportgunner 7y ago
      I agree with your comment except Visual Studio part. Everytime I use Visual Studio it feels like I'm using a big pile of hacks of varying age.
      - 72deluxe 7y ago
        What language do you write in using Visual Studio? I use it with C++ and C# and I can't say stress enough how amazing it is to use with C++, compared to the teeth-pulling experience of using xcode for the same tasks (some of which are impossible in xcode, edit-and-continue for example, set next statement).
        reportgunner 7y ago
        It might be just me, I use Visual Studio to write C# (not my "first" language) plugins for an older (non C# core) tool. Sometimes I also use Visual Studio to manage SSIS ETL packages, but I need an older VS version because they are not always backwards compatible - this leaves me with three versions installed on my computer - 2015,2017 and 2019 - each for something else. To be honest what I don't like is the neverending march of tiled frames for everything - the whole program is one frame, then i have one frame for the code, one frame for the solution explorer, two more frames for error list and output, another one for properties and so on. A lot of screen space is taken by just blank spaces or dividers. Another thing that I didn't like was that the 'Comment selection' option is hidden in Edit -> Advanced -> Comment selection. You also have to use two keyboard shortcuts in succession to comment something (Ctrl+K, Ctrl+C) and the uncomment shortcut is different (Ctrl+K, Ctrl+U). All this while Ctrl + / does nothing and could do both at the same time. I often need the whole VS solution and not just the code when I need to copy paste the project to a different folder or a different machine.
        72deluxe 7y ago
        Have you tried moving the frames around a bit? I normally dump all the frames down the bottom particularly for debugging. The double-keystroke thing is a bit odd yes, and the menu is hidden a bit far away for ease of navigation. Still, it could be worse - it could be a RIBBON!
- samplatt 7y ago
  SAP suffers from the same issue as all other universally-malleable systems: at best, they're only as good as the designer allows them to be. However, just because it resembles 90's UI (which I'm a massive fan of) doesn't mean it follows it philosophically. It regularly breaks its own rules and is deliberately designed to be obscure as possible.
  - spectramax 7y ago
    > “just because it resembles 90’s UI?” I wasn’t talking about mere resemblance. I’m talking about functionality, density of information, layout, hierarchy of importance exemplified by various aspects of the UI, clarity and intent, feedback and signaling, on and on. The whole thing. The only thing that bothered me about SAP was how clunky it felt, simply because it was slow. I’ll quote myself: “It is dense, extremely clear and consice.”, yep it’s great to use. I also love JMP statistical software UI and Cinema4D UI. They’re a pleasure to use.
- fivre 7y ago
  The UI /elements/ of the 90s were fine. That doesn't mean that anyone will necessarily build a good UI using them. SAP and software designed to offer high levels of customization in general leave the task of building a complete UI to middle managers familiar with business processes. They do not generally have any understanding of UI design and are quite happy to add a 50x50px, non-resizable text box for content that will often span multiple paragraphs.
cm2187 7y ago
I don’t know if we are using the latest versions but the UI has many other sins, not the least having buttons in odd places (submit is often at the top), many many screens to get to a place, slow as you say. I don’t care so much that the UI looks from the 90s. For an internal application, a battleship grey winform is perfectly fine, as long as the workflow is simple, fast and intuitive.
- randomsearch 7y ago
  Do you work in a grey office with grey carpets and grey desks? Aesthetics matter. Make software that is beautiful and a joy to use.
  - cm2187 7y ago
    Honestly when I work, I focus on the content. Bloomberg Terminals command based UI is a designer’s nightmare, but you get anywhere you want to go in a few keystrokes, and as far as I can tell, most other users love it too.
    - achow 7y ago
      Most existing and trained users love it. I have heard same argument for command line interface in yester years, why switch to Graphical User Interface, when CLI is so much more faster and I love it (and so do my other friends around me). Attrition (so new employees), interns, fresh campus hires, I guess does not happen in that universe.
      - cm2187 7y ago
        No it's not that bad, it has auto-complete, it has search functionalities for both commands and data, and there has been a help button to chat with a bloomberg support person for as long as I have been in this industry.
    - tomatocracy 7y ago
      The Bloomberg terminal does two things which make it much more approachable for beginners than you suggest. Don't know which function you need to do something? Type in what you want (and possibly hit HELP if it doesn't autocomplete for you) and you'll find it 9 times out of 10. The 1 time out of 10 that doesn't work, you start a chat with support and they'll point you in the right direction pretty well immediately. The one slightly annoying thing is that for a lot of things there are at least 5 different ways to do the same thing/5 different screens with very similar functionality, and everyone seems to use a different one. But it's also worth saying it's a tool specifically aimed at specialists - it's not going to hold back on giving you a huge number of options over which data you want and how you want it presented, and it's not going to warn you that some data might be incomplete or not the one 'everyone' uses.
jimnotgym 7y ago
In some of the repetitive data entry areas, like forms to enter purchase invoices, it used to have the most productive UI I have ever used. The cursor started in the right box, tabbed to the right places etc. I would swap that screen for my current modern one any day
- wrdalex 7y ago
  This is the feedback I've got while working on a customisation project based on a different ERP (red one). Users actually expect your interface to behave in the exactly same way as their ERP does (TABs and keyboard shortcuts included).
- benhurmarcel 7y ago
  > The cursor started in the right box, tabbed to the right places etc. We must have not used the same SAP forms.

I love the SAP UI - yea, its the 90's when UI was far superior than today's whitespace filled, shadow-less buttons, complete lack of skeumorphic elements, magenta gradients and huge typography - See Windows 95 UI: https://twitter.com/tuomassalo/status/978717292023500805 https://twitter.com/tuomassalo/status/978717292023500805 It is dense, extremely clear and consice. I agree with the slowness though.

meddlepal 7y ago
I feel like there continues to be a huge disconnect between UI designers and their users. I'm a power user so I am not the best person to ask for UX advice, but I talk to people all the time that just wish they still had the classic Windows 9x UI's and things more or less were "boring". Reminds me a little bit of a statement about how Taxi drivers can tell you what works architecturally better than an actual architect when it comes to ground floor interaction.
- spectramax 7y ago
  That's because contemporary designers are obsessed with trends, frameworks and aesthetics. When Dieter Rams designed Braun products, he didn't have a UI framework. He deeply thought about interaction and feedback to the user. Contemporary UI trends bother me except one: websites like drewdevault.com and text.npr.com are refreshing.
- cm2187 7y ago
  That’s the problem with software. There are two categories of software: software that their developers use themselves, and software made for other people. Visual Studio is the prime example of a software made by people who use it, it continuously improves (minus a few hiccups), it is made for the most used functionalities to be at your fingertips, it doesn’t hide stuff in layers of submenus, etc. The list is long of software made for others, and the general rule is “fuck it, good enough”. This is also why I believe the Windows 8/10 developers must be working on macs.
  - reportgunner 7y ago
    I agree with your comment except Visual Studio part. Everytime I use Visual Studio it feels like I'm using a big pile of hacks of varying age.
    - 72deluxe 7y ago
      What language do you write in using Visual Studio? I use it with C++ and C# and I can't say stress enough how amazing it is to use with C++, compared to the teeth-pulling experience of using xcode for the same tasks (some of which are impossible in xcode, edit-and-continue for example, set next statement).
      - reportgunner 7y ago
        It might be just me, I use Visual Studio to write C# (not my "first" language) plugins for an older (non C# core) tool. Sometimes I also use Visual Studio to manage SSIS ETL packages, but I need an older VS version because they are not always backwards compatible - this leaves me with three versions installed on my computer - 2015,2017 and 2019 - each for something else. To be honest what I don't like is the neverending march of tiled frames for everything - the whole program is one frame, then i have one frame for the code, one frame for the solution explorer, two more frames for error list and output, another one for properties and so on. A lot of screen space is taken by just blank spaces or dividers. Another thing that I didn't like was that the 'Comment selection' option is hidden in Edit -> Advanced -> Comment selection. You also have to use two keyboard shortcuts in succession to comment something (Ctrl+K, Ctrl+C) and the uncomment shortcut is different (Ctrl+K, Ctrl+U). All this while Ctrl + / does nothing and could do both at the same time. I often need the whole VS solution and not just the code when I need to copy paste the project to a different folder or a different machine.
        72deluxe 7y ago
        Have you tried moving the frames around a bit? I normally dump all the frames down the bottom particularly for debugging. The double-keystroke thing is a bit odd yes, and the menu is hidden a bit far away for ease of navigation. Still, it could be worse - it could be a RIBBON!
samplatt 7y ago
SAP suffers from the same issue as all other universally-malleable systems: at best, they're only as good as the designer allows them to be. However, just because it resembles 90's UI (which I'm a massive fan of) doesn't mean it follows it philosophically. It regularly breaks its own rules and is deliberately designed to be obscure as possible.
- spectramax 7y ago
  > “just because it resembles 90’s UI?” I wasn’t talking about mere resemblance. I’m talking about functionality, density of information, layout, hierarchy of importance exemplified by various aspects of the UI, clarity and intent, feedback and signaling, on and on. The whole thing. The only thing that bothered me about SAP was how clunky it felt, simply because it was slow. I’ll quote myself: “It is dense, extremely clear and consice.”, yep it’s great to use. I also love JMP statistical software UI and Cinema4D UI. They’re a pleasure to use.
fivre 7y ago
The UI /elements/ of the 90s were fine. That doesn't mean that anyone will necessarily build a good UI using them. SAP and software designed to offer high levels of customization in general leave the task of building a complete UI to middle managers familiar with business processes. They do not generally have any understanding of UI design and are quite happy to add a 50x50px, non-resizable text box for content that will often span multiple paragraphs.

cm2187 7y ago

I don’t know if we are using the latest versions but the UI has many other sins, not the least having buttons in odd places (submit is often at the top), many many screens to get to a place, slow as you say. I don’t care so much that the UI looks from the 90s. For an internal application, a battleship grey winform is perfectly fine, as long as the workflow is simple, fast and intuitive.

randomsearch 7y ago
Do you work in a grey office with grey carpets and grey desks? Aesthetics matter. Make software that is beautiful and a joy to use.
- cm2187 7y ago
  Honestly when I work, I focus on the content. Bloomberg Terminals command based UI is a designer’s nightmare, but you get anywhere you want to go in a few keystrokes, and as far as I can tell, most other users love it too.
  - achow 7y ago
    Most existing and trained users love it. I have heard same argument for command line interface in yester years, why switch to Graphical User Interface, when CLI is so much more faster and I love it (and so do my other friends around me). Attrition (so new employees), interns, fresh campus hires, I guess does not happen in that universe.
    - cm2187 7y ago
      No it's not that bad, it has auto-complete, it has search functionalities for both commands and data, and there has been a help button to chat with a bloomberg support person for as long as I have been in this industry.
  - tomatocracy 7y ago
    The Bloomberg terminal does two things which make it much more approachable for beginners than you suggest. Don't know which function you need to do something? Type in what you want (and possibly hit HELP if it doesn't autocomplete for you) and you'll find it 9 times out of 10. The 1 time out of 10 that doesn't work, you start a chat with support and they'll point you in the right direction pretty well immediately. The one slightly annoying thing is that for a lot of things there are at least 5 different ways to do the same thing/5 different screens with very similar functionality, and everyone seems to use a different one. But it's also worth saying it's a tool specifically aimed at specialists - it's not going to hold back on giving you a huge number of options over which data you want and how you want it presented, and it's not going to warn you that some data might be incomplete or not the one 'everyone' uses.

jimnotgym 7y ago

In some of the repetitive data entry areas, like forms to enter purchase invoices, it used to have the most productive UI I have ever used. The cursor started in the right box, tabbed to the right places etc. I would swap that screen for my current modern one any day

wrdalex 7y ago
This is the feedback I've got while working on a customisation project based on a different ERP (red one). Users actually expect your interface to behave in the exactly same way as their ERP does (TABs and keyboard shortcuts included).
benhurmarcel 7y ago
> The cursor started in the right box, tabbed to the right places etc. We must have not used the same SAP forms.