Build Your Own SAP Fiori App in the Cloud

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Hello and welcome to week 2, unit 1. I'm glad to be back with you.

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This week is all about design and design thinking in the context of SAP Fiori.

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So one thing I'd like to make clear up front. Typically the design process is quite collaborative

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and what I'm about to share with you is often presented in more of a workshop format

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where, ideally, there are team breakout sessions and lots of collaborative processes involved in brainstorming and whiteboarding.

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However, for the purposes of this course, I'm going to present to you design thinking in a way that allows you to jump right into the process on you own.

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Just know that in the ideal case, design thinking is quite the team effort.

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So. Before we get too far, let's define design thinking.

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As you can see here, design thinking is a design methodology all about creating innovation by combining diverse people, creative space, and an iterative approach.

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The idea is that seemingly complex problems can be addressed effectively if broken down and iterated upon.

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Ideal solutions and successful products generally have three things in common.

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They are equally feasible from a technical point of view. The “Can we do this?” feasibility circle is sometimes also referred to as the technology circle.

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They are also viable from a business point of view, so viability is related to business value.

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And finally, they're desirable and attractive from a human point of view.

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So the goal is to balance desirability, viability, and feasibility, also known as human, technology, and business aspects of design.

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So design thinking is meant to be a holistic, outside-in perspective that helps you to understand the goals and the needs of your end users,

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customers, and other stakeholders in a way that balances these three spheres.

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And as you'll see more and more, one of the characteristics of design thinking is to rapidly come up with non-coded stories and mockups that illustrate ideas and drive conversation.

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This can help validate solution concepts with end users as well as with technical experts.

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One last point here. Notice the “Start here” pointed at the desirability. This is on purpose.

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Because of the three spheres, desirability is often the most overlooked.

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It's much easier for a technical dev person and a business person to get together and determine what's needed.

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But don't underestimate how important it is for the actual end user to want what you think they need from the app you're creating.

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So this leads us straightaway into a quick snapshot of how different roles approach app creation from different angles.

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Try to keep this in perspective and take into consideration the often competing angles. Everyone wants to deliver a great app, even if a developer lead is focused on technical feasibility,

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whereas a product manager is focused on what's needed for business value.

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But again, try and think like a designer as much as possible. This is often the forgotten perspective.  

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And remember that it's equally as important to make sure an app feels great and is desirable to use by end users.

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So let's take a look at a birds-eye view of the design-thinking process. There's the problem space and the solution space.

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It's best to start broadly and narrow in the focus later after iteration. Think of the problems you would like to address by creating an app.

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What are you trying to accomplish? Try to create choices. This is called diverging. So don't hold back in this section.

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Map out all the problems you can think of related to the scenario you are trying to address.

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Then make some choices. Weed out the symptoms and converge upon the real problem you want to address.

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Next is the solution space. Now that you have a problem you are addressing, you diverge. You brainstorm tons of ideas on how to solve that problem,

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take a break, and then you come back and converge. That is, you analyze all the solution options you came up with and determine the best one that most effectively addresses the problem identified.

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I know this is sounding a bit abstract at this point, but it's important for you to be very aware of this methodology before we go into some specifics.

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In unit 3 of this week, we'll go through an example of this process within the context of Fiori.

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For now, just know that the problem space and the solution space both are equally important and require you to diverge or create choices and then converge or make choices.

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Here's another view of the design thinking process. Notice the two broad categories represented by the two large circles.

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It's representative of what we just talked about earlier: the problem space and the solution space.

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This shows you how much you have to iterate within the process. You often need to go round and round in one space before you're ready to move on to the next space,

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meaning when identifying what you think is the problem you're solving for, you have to do your research. You need to interview all of the relevant stakeholders,

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most importantly the end users, but also business owners and technical experts.