Breathing New Life into the SAP Design Guild
By Christine Wiegand, SAP AG, SAP Design Guild Team – 09/01/2000
Dear visitors,
We created the SAP Design Guild as a resource for the user interface community. Here readers can exchange information and opinions on visual and user interface design issues. In addition, SAP offers its design resources in the form of style guides, methods, and insights into how a user-centered development process should be carried out and institutionalized. In effect, how to facilitate the mind change within a company towards user-friendly software.
Because we concentrated our efforts on pooling these resources and preparing them for the site, the SAP Design Guild has up to now been a more or less "static" medium. Now it is time to shift our focus to discussion. Therefore, we added two new and more interactive sections - "Forum" and "Opinion" - to the SAP Design Guild. Moreover, we are making updates to the SAP Design Guild more visible. Our homepage now features a "News" area that lists the most recent changes and additions to our site.
While the static resources of the SAP Design Guild are still an important "selling point," we want to supplement these with content that changes daily, fortnightly, and quarterly:
- The "Construction" section is the relatively stable part of the SAP Design Guild. Some guides may be updated and new guides added, but fortunately these materials do not change too often.
- The "Innovation" section of the SAP Design Guild is tied to our editions, which appear 3 to 4 times a year. Here, experts from outside and inside SAP dedicate articles to one "hot" topic in the SAP or UI community. Our first edition was published in August of this year, featuring the topic "mySAP.com Workplace and MiniApps - Steps towards a Personalized and Efficient Electronic Work Environment." The second edition is scheduled for December 2000 and will focus on reporting.
- Now let's talk about the newest additions to the SAP Design Guild. The "Opinion" section features articles which are updated fortnightly. Every two weeks you will find editorials like this one, but also articles on design issues, opinions, and personal view points, or even critical comments on what is going on in the UI field. We also firmly hope to offer "readers' contributions" to further stimulate discussions among UI people and build a community around the SAP Design Guild.
- And what does a community need most? A discussion board! Well, here it is, named "Forum", and it is up to you to bring it to life. The SAP Design Guild team will watch, but not moderate the board. Of course, we will include our answers and opinions, but it is a readers' board, not a board for the Design Guild team. If you wish to ask the team questions directly, please send them to sapdesignguild@sap.com, and our team will answer you personally. Of course, we hope that our new "Opinion" section will be one of the driving forces for discussions going on in the board.
Finally, we would like to ask your opinion about a free, but restricted membership, including the following services:
- a newsletter about current activities in the SAP Design Guild and the SAP visual and user interface design fields
- mailings announcing important additions to the SAP Design Guild
- optional inclusion in a data base (either freely accessible or restricted?) of graphic designers and UI people in the SAP environment; this list may help you network with colleagues in other companys, or even your own company, who work in similar areas or have similar problems.
Why don't you proceed directly to the discussion board and tell us and other visitors what you think about this idea?
