As announced earlier this month, SAP Screen Personas 3.0 is now General Available (GA):
This undoubtedly represents a great achievement for SAP's overall UX strategy, as SAP Screen Personas 3.0 is an incredibly powerful toolkit that enables organizations to simplify their Dynpro screens (SAP GUI for HTML) and to improve productivity through personalization. The easier-than-ever editing and the very straightforward look and feel will transform the way companies do business. Our primary goal is to run simple, and SAP Screen Personas 3.0 fits smoothly into this framework.
We would never have reached such an important goal without the fundamental contribution from you, our customers and partners, who have accepted to use the product during ramp-up phase and during our usability tests. Your feedback helped us understand the users' needs while having them work with the product first hand. You have given us precious feedback to further improve SAP Screen Personas. This is why we are constantly asking you for your opinions and feedback on our product - your ideas really matter to us, as they allow us to grow mature and be a bit better every single day.
As we had announced a couple of months ago: http://scn.sap.com/community/gui/blog/2015/04/16/3-reasons-why-to-sign-up-now-for-testing-sap-screen-personas-30, we held usability test sessions at ASUG in Orlando, Florida from May 5 to May 7. Now we want to share what we have obtained and the consequent actions that we have taken.
Study Goals
As already mentioned, we wanted to get feedback from testers about the usability of the SAP Screen Personas 3.0 HTML with the new Slim Editor version. The new Slim Editor has changes included that we made based on the test feedback we got from the TechEd usability testing in Berlin in Nov 2014.
Test Setup and Preparation
Each test session was one hour long, with one tester, one observer, the moderator and a note taker.
We had a total of 13 testers and 8 observers. They came from very diverse backgrounds and had different business roles. Their knowledge about SAP Screen Personas was also very diverse: some had taken the openSAP course on SAP Screen Personas,
some were ramp-up customers and were more familiar with it, while others had barely heard its name. Therefore all testers were asked whether they knew what SAP Screen Personas is, and those who had no experience with the tool got a short verbal description, but no demo was shown.
How the Test worked
We assigned the testers a fictional organizational role to give them context and simulate a real life situation. We explained that their goal was to implement SAP Screen Personas in their organization.
Each tester got 9 test tasks with increasing level of complexity. A description of what to do with the Slim Editor was provided, but no indications on how to do it. The tasks ranged from building a flavor– a specific personalization for a particular SAP transaction in a specific system – and choosing a theme for the flavor, to modifying dashboards and merging tabs.
Testers were asked to “think aloud” as they went through the test and were closely watched as they proceeded step by step. Their reactions to the tasks and their behavior during the test were recorded.
At the end of each test we asked them a few wrap-up questions about what they had liked, what they had not liked or understood, what they would have done differently, what they would have liked to see in the future and whether they were planning to use SAP Screen Personas. We also handed out a post-test survey.
Results
All testers demonstrated great interest in the product, and were enthusiastic to participate in the test. The demand was so high that we offered an additional test session. All testers answered our wrap-up questions and 11 of them filled out the survey.
What is good: the Strengths of SAP Screen Personas
We received extremely positive feedback on SAP Screen Personas, and all testers declared to be very satisfied with the tool:
- They were amazed by the ease of use, even if they had no experience with the product beforehand;
- They all understood that profound knowledge of what to change is required before starting to build flavors, but were pleased with the fact that the tool has everything to modify SAP GUI for HTML transactions;
- They appreciated the possibility to create flavors for specific user groups, for example new employees, leading to a very fast learning curve with less data on the screen.
What is even better: the Weaknesses that no longer exist
What has proved really important for us to grow is critical feedback, as it gives us an idea of what to improve on SAP Screen Personas to make it work even better. Testers raised a few minor usability issues with the tool, together with suggestions on how to solve them. We took their statements and started working from there to improve the product. We took immediate action and solved most difficulties so that they no longer exist. Some examples are:
- There was a confusing and superfluous checkbox when creating a new flavor asking to base it on the original screen, which was the only available option --> we have eliminated the checkbox (see Picture 4);
- There was no tooltip on the “Flavor Gallery” icon and most users did not understand the meaning of the icon --> we have added a tooltip;
- The “Pin” Icon was not intuitive enough --> we made more clear and helpful also for the visually impaired
Constantly working for you
As customer satisfaction with an easy and pleasant user experience is our primary goal, we keep working on improving SAP Screen Personas 3.0. More advancements based on customer feedback are to come in the near future, aiming to an even more powerful and efficient simplification tool.
For example, we are planning to add two important modifications very soon:
- Objects on the screen would no longer overlay each other and will appear as stacked (Picture 5);
- The “Save”, “Exit” and “Save and Exit” icons would be accompanied by explanatory text
We are planning to offer further usability testing sessions in the future and take customers’ suggestions like we have already done. We will keep you posted and you will be informed of any upcoming sessions.
We can be proud of our successes, but we are always ready to learn and grow. This is the best way we can be there for you and allow you to really run simple.
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For the SAP Screen Personas product team, Sylvia Barnard and Giulia Savino (Intern at SAP Screen Personas Product Team)