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Archive - Edition 0: Philosophy

To Overview of Edition

EnjoySAP

• EnjoySAP: A Success Story
• EnjoySAP – Success Factors

Branding

• Reinvigorating the SAP Brand
• Branding Methods

Design

• Introducing Grand Design to the Digital Domain
• SAP GUI Color Usage for Brand and Emotional Qualities
• Speeding UI Design Forward
• Graphics Usage for Brand and Personalization Qualities within SAP Applications

User Experience

• Cooper Interaction Design Enjoys SAP
• Contextual Design at SAP
• What Does User Integration Mean for Software Design?
• User Feedback

 

Speeding UI Design Forward

By Hartmut Esslinger, CEO, frogdesign, inc. – April 2000

Disclaimer: Please note that this article was written in 2000. Therefore, statements in the articles, particularly those regarding SAP's products, product strategy, branding stratey, and organizational structure, are no longer valid.

Abstract

As we watch the first really digital generation grow up, we must realize that today's fourteen year olds are computer-smarter than their parents – when it comes to computers, they find functions even the developers didn't know existed. They think in virtual as easily as in real. What does this mean to software development when today's design is based on analog controls?

Human analog-mechanical tools have been created by thousands of years improvement on the shortfalls of their limited usability, our digital tools of today are been created by programmers and designers who – at least so far – are more concerned about the technical programming needs and limitations of binary digital machines, then the way real people would like to use them.

On the other hand, only now, we see the first really digital generation grow up and we must realize that today's fourteen year olds are computer-smarter then their parents, their teachers and the writers of the books they learn from – when it comes to computers. Without relying on user manuals, they interface with computers, cell-phones or hand-held-devices as something completely normal, they find functions even the creators of the products didn't know that they exist and they think in virtual as easy as in real. This means, that we not only face a revolution in interfacing digital media / software but that we also face a revolution of what will happen with software and delivery tools again.

When we go from analog-physical usage to digital-virtual usage, the analog-physical usage is always one step – or between 20 and 30 years – behind the true expression of new technology:

• the first automobiles had a combustion engine, but still the operating gear and the design of a horse-pulled coach;
• the first jet-liners (B 707) flew higher and faster then propeller planes, but still had the old cockpit, the DC-8 even was hailed as "easy-to-use" like a DC-7;
• the first personal computers put machine-intelligence into people's reach, but still look like a typewriter with a TV on to;
• and – as said – most bit-map software looks like Hungarian stitching.

BUT: analog UI also set some good examples for digital UI:

• Henry Dreyfuss created fool-proof UIs for military equipment, e.g. the radar buttons or instruments looked and felt different then fuel gauges, the bomb dropping devices or the ejector seat button;
• in WW2, the British RAF (ROYAL AIR FORCE) used red-lighted instruments in the cockpits of fighter planes which allowed their pilots to read the instruments without blinding out the night-purpur – the German Luftwaffe had horrendous night losses and lost the battle of England also because of that;
• the need for safe operations of automobiles led to a pretty high de-facto standard for cockpit design and driving ergonomics
• toys must be safe – so they are normally pretty good examples of UI, the LEGO bricks being a unique example of total unity of shape, purpose and UI.

Analog-based paradigms are still plenty in digital UI, BUT they must become much more inspired and meaningful

• ICONS work great in traffic-control and are great tools aginst language-barrier, but if a computer applications shows more then 70 icons at once, it doesn't work;
• desktops translate an "analog" office worker to the computer screen. But the next generation users migrates from 3-D games into the "office". Their software may look like a cockpit or a space expedition.
• spreadsheets? why not landscapes, solar systems or rubic-cube-like navigation – and balance sheets showing trees or a swimming ship?

 

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