Testing new methods is the best way to succeed Hélice Experience is a Brazilian design start-up based in Porto Alegre which was founded by Fernando C. Guimarães, Rafael Barcellos and Alexandre Press in 2014. They offer strategy execution and engagement services. A lot of companies facing or experiencing a change turn to Hélice Experience to […]
The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and SAP teamed up to enhance the sport with exciting new data and analytics tools. The result of the collaboration -- an award winning and innovative tablet app -- has changed the game forever.
Large enterprises are facing a faster changing business environment: innovation cycles are getting shorter, markets are being disrupted through digitization, new business models evolve, the “new generation” wants to be led differently, and working models are being revolutionized. A people-centric approach is a key differentiator for companies that want to be and stay relevant in […]
Fraport AG, the airport managing group of Frankfurt Airport, is using Design Thinking methods and tools to improve security issues as well as the service at Frankfurt Airport. We had the pleasure to interview Till Eichenauer on how this tool was used and perceived at Fraport.
A combination between tech and refugees? How can these demographics serve as inspiration for the startup community in Berlin? The catchy new term represents a highly political and controversial shift for an industry that historically serves paying consumers only. At this year’s Diversity in Tech Conference hosted by The Factory Berlin, panelists used the term “techfugees” […]
Daimler AG drives change in innovation and agile working culture and therefore implements Design Thinking in its organization. Daimler has chosen SAP as a partner for their Design Thinking enablement because SAP went on a similar journey and thus Daimler can benefit from SAP’s learnings.
When most people think of SAP HANA, they think “extreme speed”. And they should, given that the in-memory capabilities of HANA enable it to process and analyze large volumes of data in real-time. But when combined with design thinking, SAP HANA delivers much more than speed – it delivers innovation. Nowhere is this more true – and more […]
Through a partnership with TurboVote, SAP is using research and design to help address low turnout rates among America's young, first-time voters. With over 500,000 new TurboVote subscribers in 2016 alone, the work is having real impact.
In my experience, about 50% of the screens our customers use are not developed by SAP but instead are adapted or developed by partners or the customer’s internal IT organization. I also learned in more than 300 customer projects, that many IT organizations typically do not engage directly with their end users when they develop […]
I visited with a customer recently who told me about a training program his company holds every 18 months for new contractors. The company needs to refresh its group of 3,000 contractors every year and a half. Each time new contractors are onboarded, they require two days of training, in which they learn what is […]
Digital transformation is all about disruption There are already tons of articles out there about the buzzword digital transformation and everyone has different thoughts and opinions on this hyped topic. But I believe it is just a means to generate new business models, which are sometimes disruptive for them. And we can only benefit from […]
One of the biggest outcomes of the technology consumerization trend is how it has driven the importance of design. There’s no “waiting out” this trend – an unstoppable wave of interest in design centricity is hitting the business world, shifting the focus in product and service development from features to experience. But why? What is […]
At the International Summer Science School Heidelberg (ISH) on Wednesday, July 20, 2016, 28 students aged between 16 and 21 from Heidelberg’s various sister cities around the world got an introduction to the Design Thinking method. In a one-day workshop, the students gained an understanding of the different steps involved in this work method. The […]
By now, most IT leaders have become convinced of the need to move their organizations away from a mindset of delivering functions and features, and move toward a focus that puts the user’s true needs at the center, employing design thinking principles. Discover and Plan – Where to start?Why should you create your own UX strategy? Where do you start, […]
In my last blog I have explained why design, design thinking and experience matter in the digital transformation, which goes beyond pure technology and business skills. The credo is to engage with your customers and, most importantly, with the users right from the beginning, in an iterative, user-centric design process. Digital Transformation is a journey and more […]
Digital transformation is a hyped topic currently. But actually it is far more than a buzzword. Technology trends like hyper-connectivity, big data, cloud, Internet of Things and security provide new opportunities for companies to reimagine their business and how they engage with their customers and users. But what happens if you develop an amazing technical solution that […]
A new SAP Labs Berlin office location was opened at Münzstraße in the heart of Berlin earlier this week. With the opening of the new location, Berlin is now part of the worldwide SAP Labs network with 16 offices in 13 countries. The new office is a space dedicated to design work, co-innovation, and collaboration, […]
During the last two years in my role as a design thinking coach at SAP, I experienced the power of analogies in various design thinking (DT) projects. Again and again, I was impressed by how analogies brought inspiration and value to any DT challenge the team faced. Analogies create understanding, inspiration, and identification in project […]
The winners of the 2015 SAP Gründerwerkstatt, a workshop for startup entrepreneurs, were recently invited to the SAP AppHaus in Heidelberg for an interview. Their “Back on Track” project had just garnered another accolade in winning the Google Impact Challenge, which followed a second-place finish in ECHT GUT!, an award the German state of Baden-Württemberg […]
Flight simulations are an essential part of training pilots – it is impossible to learn from manuals and textbooks what hands-on experience can teach you. The Enterprise Resource Planning Simulation, ERPSim4HANA, from Baton Simulations is like a flight simulation with a twist – it allows you to operate a business in a virtual environment using […]
At the Design & Co-Innovation Center, we foster T-shaped design teams by continually expanding our knowledge and skillsets. To achieve this, we host numerous learning opportunities for our team from Bikablo drawing workshops and Drupal learning sessions to guest talks on a range of topics like photo journalism and visual storytelling. In continuation of this […]
A phenomenal number of people in the world are affected by cancer, whether individuals battling the disease, their family and friends, or the medical specialists researching cures and treating patients. That’s why I’m humbled and grateful to be associated with the SAP Medical Research Insights solution, powered by SAP HANA, which recently won the highly regarded Red Dot Award for […]
The EBS Alumni Network is the alumni organization of the private EBS University (Wiesbaden/Oestrich-Winkel) with over 3,400 members in more than 30 countries. Since its inception in 1971, the EBS Alumni Community has evolved to one of the biggest promoters of the EBS with a cumulative financing volume of several million euros. With the EBS […]
In mid November, 250 people gathered right in the center of Berlin for the Service Experience Camp, Europe’s largest service design conference this year, to listen to international thought leaders, connect to other professionals, and to enjoy a festival-like atmosphere. This year’s theme was “struggling for change”, targeting participants from different disciplines including designers and […]
In this year in review we would like to share our biggest successes and greatest experiences with you. Since 2013 it is the mission of the Design & Co-Innovation Center to elevate the perception of SAP’s user experience and design. We have been focusing on working in a creative space, with the right approach and the […]
In late November, about 140 early talents from all over Germany gathered at the Rhein-Neckar Arena in Sinsheim, close to SAP’s headquarters in Walldorf, to experience SAP – the company they have joined during the last two years – as part of the P&I Early Talents develop&&impact Program. On day one, Sibylle Barz (P&I ET […]
After winning the Red Dot Award “Design Concept 2015″ for Fiori 2.0, SAP Medical Research Insights now received the prestigious award “Communication Design 2015” in the category Interface Design.
When the SAP AppHaus in Heidelberg celebrated its first birthday, we held a retrospective with the entire team of the SAP Design & Co-Innovation Center to look back and to discuss what could be improved. This is when the topic of feedback crystallized and we realized, that we can do a lot more to learn […]
I’m very pleased to bring you the seventh in my series of interviews with SAP employees in a variety of roles in the area of user experience and design. About Beate Beate Riefer is a design thinking coach with SAP’s Design and Co-Innovation Center in Heidelberg, Germany. Beate started working at SAP in 2010 as a user experience designer and […]
Learn more about how SAP and the Heidelberg University Hospital joined forces to significantly accelerate and simplify cervical cancer screening in fragile infrastructures, starting in Kenya, powered by SAP HANA Cloud Platform.
The world of soccer has long since opened up to the power of technological advances. TSG 1899 Hoffenheim a German Bundesliga club has developed a reputation as a leading innovator. Buoyed by the popularity that the “Footbonaut” ‒ a training machine for sharpening ball-control and response skills ‒ enjoyed among its coaches and players, the […]
From my experience as a designer at SAP's Design & Co-Innovation Center, one common issue we face during our design research is the (mis)understanding of roles–the expert and a typical end user. While these roles have a lot of overlap, they are not interchangeable.
About 500 guests showed up at the AppHaus Heidelberg and the SAP Design & Co-Innovation Center (DCC) following the open house invitation last weekend. On Friday, September 25, the AppHaus was only open for SAP employees, while its doors were open to the wider public on Saturday, September 26. Anyone who wanted to learn about […]
The Pre Conference Seminar “Turn User Experience into reality” session has the goal of showing you the opportunities of creating a UX strategy at your own organization. Design Experts from SAP Design and Co-Innovation Center together with customers who already started this ux journey will share their experiences. You will also get an update on […]
On September 2, 2015 the “Your City, Your Ideas – New Heroes in Rhine-Neckar” competition officially kicked off in the SAP AppHaus Heidelberg. In this competition, the crowdfunding platform SPONSORT has joined forces with the SAP Design & Co-Innovation Center, Volksbank Kurpfalz, and the cities of Heidelberg, Ludwigshafen, and Mannheim to search for people with […]
In 2013, Coca-Cola HBC turned to the SAP Design & Co-Innovation Center (DCC) to open a web channel. After the implementation, Coca-Cola Hellenic asked their end-users about their experience with the new web channel design and made a video capturing it. Coca-Cola HBC is one of the largest bottlers of the brands of the Coca-Cola […]
I had the great honor of interviewing Johanna Welz (18) and Viola Benecke (17), the two young women who joined SAP´s Design & Co-Innovation Center (DCC), based in the AppHaus in Heidelberg, for one month as interns. Johanna just having graduated and Viola still a continuing student are on their way to find out what […]
The SAP AppHaus in Heidelberg welcomes about 3000 visitors a year – people who come to do business with SAP, be they customers or partners. Many of them react with surprise when they enter our space. When we ask them about the reason for their reaction, the answer usually is that „this doesn’t look like SAP.“ „But what were you expecting?“, we ask.
The SAP Design & Co-Innovation Center (DCC) has a mission: to make design a priority at SAP. “SAP is not perceived as being a leader in design,” explains Matthias Langholz, Strategic Design Consultant at the DCC. “In fact, quite the contrary. Our main aim is to change this with interesting design projects that show that […]
Ms. Theresia Bauer – Minister of Science, Research and the Arts for the State of Baden-Württemberg – visited AppHaus Heidelberg on July 29, 2015, together with several representatives of her ministry, the Ministry of State, the City of Heidelberg, and members of her Greens party. It was important for her to find out more about […]
The SAP Design and Co-Innovation Center (DCC) hosted Further with Ford conference attendees in Palo Alto last month. SAP demonstrated our innovations and prototypes to Ford media and generated a lot of interest and excitement around this event.
Continuing on from our One Hand Paper Airplanes exercise, here’s a new and fun warm-up to try from the Design & Co-Innovation Center. In this warm-up exercise, we’re learning how to embrace our stumbles and falls along the journey to success. Finding out what didn’t work lets you know what does. So when you take […]
Statistics, numbers, data – what sounds nerdy at first can be refreshingly captivating if you put it in a new context. Indeed this spring, SAP and the National Hockey League (NHL), the professional ice hockey league, consisting of 30 member clubs in USA and Canada, scored a big coup in revolutionizing the representation of sports statistics and retelling their story to hockey lovers all over the world.
Working in an IT department of a company you may know this situation: you want to enjoy your lunch with colleagues, chat about the soccer game yesterday or the upcoming jazz concert, talk about your family, speculate about the weather or discuss your plans for the next weekend. But instead of this pleasant prospect, you […]
Benjamin Franklin once said: “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” At the SAP Design & Co-Innovation Center (DCC) at SAP we frequently organize the so-called “Method Mondays”, a regular one-hour meeting series in which the team members share, practice, and test different methods. In this article […]
Presenting winners of the 2014 Design for Experience awards. These people and organizations are doing vanguard work in the field of experience design and were selected as winners based in large part on what we can learn from their work. Watch for articles over the coming months that explore the winning entries in more detail.
XX+UX is an event for women (XX) in the field of User Experiences (UX) to meet and mingle. This event is organized by Google and hosted by different companies at locations worldwide. The January 2015 event is hosted by SAP’s Design and Co-Innovation Center (DCC) in Palo Alto, California, where many talented XXs create magical UX for enterprise software users.
The Design & Co-Innovation Center (DCC) is only the newest chapter in SAP’s long history of design. As the saying goes, we are “standing on the shoulders of giants” and our successes are only possible through the focused design efforts happening throughout the company. There is no longer a fight between profitability and creativity, rather […]
Last Friday, on 14 November 2014, the SAP AppHaus in Heidelberg celebrated its first birthday with an open house event, welcoming more than 300 interested colleagues and neighbors from the Landfried complex curious to discover the Design & Co-Innovation Center’s home of innovation. For all of you who could not make it to the AppHaus […]
In today’s customer-driven world, the consumer’s voice is one of the most important ingredients in technology design that dazzles with brilliant simplicity. Whether people are at home or work, their experience with software has to align with how they work and what they do.
With the support of the Design and Co-Innovation Center (DCC) from SAP, Unilever has established a User Interface Center of Excellence at the organization, resulting in a considerable increase in user productivity and satisfaction. In this interview, Manfred Kürschner, Head of User Interface Center of Excellence, Unilever, shares his thoughts about the establishment of a UI […]
The Medical Research Insights project has won the German Design Award in the category Excellent Communications Design – Interactive User Experience . „The Medical Research Insights permits safe, direct access to various clinical data systems. Thanks to the intuitive UI system and clear, graphic presentation, complex medical information can be assessed simply and in real time and sound decisions made. The system […]
On September 2nd – 4th, 2014, design managers from all over the world met at the Academic Design Management Conference to discuss their insights and past experiences. A good opportunity to have Janaki Kumar and Tobias Haug, the team leaders of the Design and Co-Innovation Center (DCC) from SAP, share their retrospective with us on the founding and development of their teams.
Last Wednesday, the SAP Design & Co-Innovation Center (DCC) together with Service Design Berlin successfully organized and hosted the Service Design Drinks for the local design community. 130 participants with a service-oriented mindset from 66 companies came together at the SAP office in the middle of Berlin, Germany. The non-profit organization Service Design Berlin aims […]
At the 19th DMI, the Academic Design Management Conference, which will take place in London from 2 to 4 September, four members of the Design & Co-Innovation Center (DCC) from SAP will conduct workshops about Design Management sharing their expertise, skills, and knowledge from working in UX and Design at SAP. To approach innovation […]
For the past six months, I have been working as an intern in Marketing & Communications at the Design & Co-Innovation Center (DCC) based at the SAP AppHaus Heidelberg, Germany. The extraordinary environment and the passionate, committed team have made this internship a great experience. There is something special about the AppHaus, inspired by the […]
The Patient Data Explorer/Medical Research Insights project is now officially nominated for the German Design Award. This international premium prize recognizes high-quality products and projects of the German and international design landscape. Developed in partnership with the German National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) in Heidelberg the Medical Research Insights solution enables doctors and researchers to […]
There is nothing like "learning by doing" when it comes to experience what real design means. This is the promise the Design and Co-Innovation Center (DCC) team from the SAP AppHaus Heidelberg makes to students of the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University Loerrach (DHBW).
In this interview Dr. Johannes Milde, CEO of Siemens Building Technologies Division, outlines the benefits the Building Performance Management Cockpit, a co-innovation project with SAP UX Design Services, provides for Corporate Real Estate Customers.
After the enormous success of SAPPHIRE NOW, which took place at the beginning of June in Orlando, Florida, USA, the excitement generated by this event is still present. SAPPHIRE is the biggest celebration of SAP in the entire ecosystem with customers, partners, and colleagues taking part. This year’s SAPPHIRE NOW was truly dedicated to the […]
Stepping out of the mid-day Bay Area heat and into the open, tailored space, we crowd around Doctor Alan Schroeder, Director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Smiling nurses, wearing red cloth shirts with flower pins, calmly navigate our surrounding area. As Dr. Schroeder welcomes us to the medical center, many of us eagerly tip […]
SAP is known for its enterprise solutions but is only starting to be known also for its User Experience (UX) design services. “Welcome to the new SAP” was part of the message behind “Gamification at Work with Janaki Kumar and Q&A with Don Norman”.
Medical Research Insights, jointly developed by SAP and the German National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT), got a Professional Strategy & Research Notable for the Core77 2014 Design Awards, recognizing excellence in all areas of design enterprise. The Medical Research Insights solution enables medical staff to securely analyze clinical data to help improve cancer diagnostics dramatically. Doctors […]
On June 3, 2014, to celebrate the second German Diversity Day, the city of Heidelberg, in collaboration with the Intercultural Center Heidelberg, SAP, the SAP AppHaus, and Neue deutsche Medienmacher hosted a diversity event at the Landfried complex and transformed the former tobacco factory into a think tank. To tie in with the upcoming opening of […]
Researchers from Stanford University Center for Work, Technology, and Organization share their thoughts about the global partnership with SAP, Design Thinking, and the impact of creative workspaces such as the AppHaus on co-innovation projects.
The Intersection conference explored how to design and humanize the enterprise of the future. SAP outlined in their talk why establishing design practices within an organization can be a competitive advantage and shared how the design team works together with SAP customers.