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Answer from former SAP employee (may have changed in the last 15 years): Two main reasons: - It's actually terminal software, that's translated into a GUI fro

by wheels 4y ago

Answer from former SAP employee (may have changed in the last 15 years): Two main reasons: - It's actually terminal software, that's translated into a GUI from a text interface on the fly. - The people that buy SAP never have to use SAP. Its interface is not a selling point.

lqet 4y ago
> It's actually terminal software, that's translated into a GUI from a text interface on the fly I am intrigued - you mean terminal output is actually parsed, and a GUI view is then generated from it? E: this would certainly explain the issue of listboxes only having the currently shown items loaded (described by another commenter) - everytime you scroll, the terminal output has to be produced + parsed again
- wheels 4y ago
  Historically, yes. It was basically like translating an ncurses (semi-GUI command line thing) into a UI. There were attempts to move away from that model, but at least when I worked for SAP, most actual deployments were still text-to-UI. It was basically a way of slapping some varnish on what was fundamentally an old-school mainframe system.
  - 656565656565 4y ago
    at least DIAG is relatively small on the network, probably as a result
  - taway19920706 4y ago
    It's the same today - S/4HANA is still accessible from the GUI and DIAG is still used. Web applications (which SAP is pushing customers towards) are freed from this, of course (they talk native http to the SAP application server). Remember that back in the late 90s SAP had a native GUI that ran on Windows, OS/2 and Unix (Motif-based) and each had their own native controls (a native Windows listbox is implemented differently from a Motif one, for example). Developers would develop a UI in ABAP with platform-independent controls and that UI would be sent over the wire to the client as DIAG and the client would translate that into the native control and data, etc for the end user.
    - 656565656565 4y ago
      and experienced users can move very quickly through screens like a terminal but Fiori UI5 is the root of all evil
      - taway19920706 4y ago
        Agreed! SAP's GUI is generally terrible for occasional users (luckily most have now been moved to web-based applications, of varying levels of user friendliness), but in the hands of experienced back office staff it works well. Not pretty, but very functional and with shortcuts for everything.
- vezuchyy 4y ago
  > the issue of listboxes only having the currently shown items loaded I challenged this design decision when Fiori was introduced and the thing is that statistically the lists are either small or huge. When they're huge, they got touched in less than 10% cases, so by not loading the whole content you save a lot.
NolF 4y ago
The article says you should reserve 17% of your project budget in training. Couldn't good UX help with that?
- wheels 4y ago
  I'm not actually sure, because I feel like most of the things people do with SAP are very repetitive. Their UIs are mind-bendingly bad, but you mostly learn to do the 3 things you have to do all of the time, and then do them over and over again. I'm not sure how much having a nicer UI would make that easier. It's absolutely not something you just randomly explore. I think that's a more interesting question: what sort of empowerment of employees could you create if the UI wasn't so terrible? But SAP's moat is elsewhere. You put up with its terribleness because nothing else can do what it does. Beating SAP would require you to reach that, and do something else, part of which could be a nicer UI.
- hef19898 4y ago
  No, because the training is about the core functionalities of those ERP systems, what action triggers what and so on. Training is not about how the UI works, this knowledge is gained on the job.
- friendzis 4y ago
  Every business software is at least as complex as the business process it models. That's the thing you training for. Every detail of the business process is now explicit. Employees have to be forced to work according to actual process. You need quite a bunch training for that. Then employees will find shortcuts to make their own job a bit faster/easier, which will fuck up some cases. You need even more training for that and possibly some redesigns. And all you get from that is depression
tinus_hn 4y ago
I wish we were actually allowed to use the text interface but all we get is some halfway reasonable, halfway terrible web ui.

by wheels 4y ago

lqet 4y ago

> It's actually terminal software, that's translated into a GUI from a text interface on the fly I am intrigued - you mean terminal output is actually parsed, and a GUI view is then generated from it? E: this would certainly explain the issue of listboxes only having the currently shown items loaded (described by another commenter) - everytime you scroll, the terminal output has to be produced + parsed again

wheels 4y ago
Historically, yes. It was basically like translating an ncurses (semi-GUI command line thing) into a UI. There were attempts to move away from that model, but at least when I worked for SAP, most actual deployments were still text-to-UI. It was basically a way of slapping some varnish on what was fundamentally an old-school mainframe system.
- 656565656565 4y ago
  at least DIAG is relatively small on the network, probably as a result
- taway19920706 4y ago
  It's the same today - S/4HANA is still accessible from the GUI and DIAG is still used. Web applications (which SAP is pushing customers towards) are freed from this, of course (they talk native http to the SAP application server). Remember that back in the late 90s SAP had a native GUI that ran on Windows, OS/2 and Unix (Motif-based) and each had their own native controls (a native Windows listbox is implemented differently from a Motif one, for example). Developers would develop a UI in ABAP with platform-independent controls and that UI would be sent over the wire to the client as DIAG and the client would translate that into the native control and data, etc for the end user.
  - 656565656565 4y ago
    and experienced users can move very quickly through screens like a terminal but Fiori UI5 is the root of all evil
    - taway19920706 4y ago
      Agreed! SAP's GUI is generally terrible for occasional users (luckily most have now been moved to web-based applications, of varying levels of user friendliness), but in the hands of experienced back office staff it works well. Not pretty, but very functional and with shortcuts for everything.
vezuchyy 4y ago
> the issue of listboxes only having the currently shown items loaded I challenged this design decision when Fiori was introduced and the thing is that statistically the lists are either small or huge. When they're huge, they got touched in less than 10% cases, so by not loading the whole content you save a lot.

NolF 4y ago

The article says you should reserve 17% of your project budget in training. Couldn't good UX help with that?

wheels 4y ago
I'm not actually sure, because I feel like most of the things people do with SAP are very repetitive. Their UIs are mind-bendingly bad, but you mostly learn to do the 3 things you have to do all of the time, and then do them over and over again. I'm not sure how much having a nicer UI would make that easier. It's absolutely not something you just randomly explore. I think that's a more interesting question: what sort of empowerment of employees could you create if the UI wasn't so terrible? But SAP's moat is elsewhere. You put up with its terribleness because nothing else can do what it does. Beating SAP would require you to reach that, and do something else, part of which could be a nicer UI.
hef19898 4y ago
No, because the training is about the core functionalities of those ERP systems, what action triggers what and so on. Training is not about how the UI works, this knowledge is gained on the job.
friendzis 4y ago
Every business software is at least as complex as the business process it models. That's the thing you training for. Every detail of the business process is now explicit. Employees have to be forced to work according to actual process. You need quite a bunch training for that. Then employees will find shortcuts to make their own job a bit faster/easier, which will fuck up some cases. You need even more training for that and possibly some redesigns. And all you get from that is depression

tinus_hn 4y ago

I wish we were actually allowed to use the text interface but all we get is some halfway reasonable, halfway terrible web ui.