SAP DESIGN GUILD

SAP Design Guild Newsletters 2008

Updated: 12/16/2008

2008: 58 | 57 | 56 | 55 | 54 | 53 | 52 | 51 || Newsletters 2005-2007 || Newsletters 2003-2004 || Newsletters 2000-2002

Nothing gets lost at the SAP Design Guild. Here is the archive of our newsletters from 2008. Older newsletters can be accessed through the links above.

 

2008

SAP Design Guild Newsletter – November 2008 (No. 58, 12/16/2008)

We would like to inform you of the following new additions to the SAP Design Guild Website:

• Continuing with the "performance" topic, we published an article about start-up time in the design tidbits and also added it to our Highlight Topic "Performance:"
  • Addressing a "Design Issue:" Start-Up Time (ditto in Highlight Topic)
• We also extended the performance glossary und added a copy of it to the glossaries in the Goodies section:
  • Performance Glossary (ditto in Highlight Topic)
• In our Stories corner, we co-published another report about mobile interaction, contributed by Sebastian Meier and Thomas Hirt:
  • Location Based Applications
• Finally, we managed to publish the review of Colin Ware's book Visual Thinking for Design:
  • Book Review: Visual Thinking for Design
• Last, but not least, we updated the accessibility guideline about keyboard control:
  • Keyboard Control of UI Elements (see also: German version).

In addition, we made a number of minor updates to the Website.

SAP Design Guild Newsletter – November 2008 (No. 57, 11/20/2008)

We would like to inform you of the following new additions to the SAP Design Guild Website:

• In the meantime, we published the two remaining design tidbits about responsiveness and perceived performance:
  • Human Performance at the Computer – Part 2: Making Applications More Responsive
  • Human Performance at the Computer – Part 3: Perceived Performance
• We also published an editorial that introduces our new hightlight topic and discusses performance-oriented design:
  • Have You Ever Heard of Performance-Oriented (UI) Design?
• But of course, the top news of this newsletter is our highlight topic "Human Performance at the Computer."
  It is devoted to human performance at the computer and includes topics such as responsiveness, perceived performance, and busy feedback. The articles have been published in different areas of the SAP Design Guild over the course of about one year and are now presented within a coherent framework for easier access. And there are also a few new articles.
  • See the highlight topic (overview page)
  • Read the leading article by Ulrich Kreichgauer, SAP UX - Infrastructure
  • Read the introduction to the highlight topic

In addition, we made a number of minor updates to the Website.

Outlook

• We still have the book "Visual Thinking for Design" by Colin Ware in our review pipeline. We hope to publish the review by the end of November. (Check this link to find out whether the review has been published.)
• We will also update the performance glossary.

SAP Design Guild Newsletter – October 2008 (No. 56, 10/22/2008)

We would like to inform you of the following new additions to the SAP Design Guild Website:

• In the meantime, we managed to publish the two remaining articles about giving system feedback:
  • Waiting at the Computer: Busy Indicators and System Feedback – Part 2
  • Waiting at the Computer: Busy Indicators and System Feedback – Part 3
• We also started a series of four articles about human performance at the computer and published already two articles:
  • Human Performance at the Computer – Part 1: Introduction
  • Human Performance at the Computer – Part 4: On the Way to Performance-Oriented UI Guidelines
• The Books & People section offers a new book review: Sketching User Interfaces by Bill Buxton
• Furthermore, we updated the UI Guidelines for CRM WebClient User Interface to version 1.5
• And finally, we updated the Accessibility edition with an ICCHP 2008 presentation

In addition, we made a number of minor updates to the Website.

SAP Contributing Sponsor to the CSCW 2008 Conference

We would also like to remind you that SAP has become a contributing sponsor to the CSCW 2008 conference at San Diego, California, USA, to be held in November 2008.

Outlook

We have one more book review in our review pipeline: Visual Thinking for Design by Colin Ware. We hope to publish it in late October or in November.
Two more articles about human performance at the computer are due to be published in the design tidbits in November, one covering responsiveness, the other discussing perceived performance.

The next SAP Design Guild newsletter will be published in November and hopefully announce a new "highlight topic" covering human performance at the computer. We have already assembled most of the pieces and are confident that the article collection will be ready to appear by the end of November (see a preview).

SAP Design Guild Newsletter – August 2008 (No. 55, 08/19/2008)

Instead of falling into a summer slump, we have a plethora of new additions to the SAP Design Guild Website:

• Thanks to SAP UX colleague Esther Blankenship, we published as many as four new articles about SAP's new Signature visual design in the Resources section:
  • Visual Design for Business Software
  • Visual Design at SAP – Revolutions and Evolutions
  • The Signature Design under the Microscope
  • SAP’s Visual Design Vision and Mission
    Note: The previously published presentation about the new Signature visual design has been replaced by the new articles.
• The Books & People section offers a new book review: GUI Bloopers 2.0 by Jeff Johnson
• In our Stories corner, we co-published a new report about mobile interaction, contributed by Milan Guenther and Thomas Hirt:
  Rapid User-Centered Design for Mobile Enterprise Applications
• Finally, there is a new editorial about the many buzzwords for our profession

In addition, we made a number of minor updates to the Website, particularly to the Books & People section.

SAP Sponsor to the Mensch & Computer 2008 Conference

We would also like to remind you that SAP has become a sponsor to the Mensch & Computer 2008 conference at Lübeck, Germany.

Outlook

We have two more book reviews in our review pipeline: Sketching User Experiences by Bill Buxton and Visual Thinking for Design by Colin Ware. We hope to publish them in September or October.

• The second part of our article about busy indicators and system feedback in the Design Tidbits corner has been delayed to September.
• The promised editorial about performance-oriented UI guidelines has been "converted" into a Design Tidbits and is still in progress. It should be ready in September or October.
• A futher Design Tidbit will cover approaches to improving responsiveness.

So, stay tuned for new articles to come! The next SAP Design Guild newsletter will be published in September or October, depending on how much new content we will have to offer in September.
By the way, we are planning to publish a new "highlight topic" covering performance/responsiveness by the end of this year

SAP Design Guild Newsletter – July 2008 (No. 54, 07/22/2008)

We would like to inform you of the following new additions to the SAP Design Guild Website:

• We published two new papers in the Resources section:
  • UI Guidelines for CRM WebClient User Interface
  • A presentation about the new Signature visual design
• We also finally published a new design tidbit: Waiting at the Computer: Busy Indicators and System Feedback – Part 1
  The second part of the article should appear in August 2008.
• The Books & People section offers a new book review: Press On – Principles of Interaction Programming by Harold Thimbleby
• In our Stories corner, we have three new articles:
  • CHI 2008 Report – Not Only a Rant...
  • A Fresh Look for a Better User Experience by Perry Manross about SAP's new visual design
  • Providing a Web-like User Experience to Business Users – The New SAP CRM Web Client User Interface by SAP UX colleagues Theo Held and Martin Schrepp

In addition, we made a number of minor updates to the Website, including adding two new job offers.

SAP Sponsor to the Mensch & Computer 2008 Conference

We would also like to inform you that SAP has become a sponsor to the Mensch & Computer 2008 conference at Lübeck, Germany.

Outlook

We have still one book review in our review pipeline (GUI Bloopers 2.0 by Jeff Johnson) and hope to publish it in August.
We also plan to publish the second part of our article about busy indicators and system feedback in the Design Tidbits corner in August.
In addition, we have an article about SAP's new visual design in our pipeline. It should be ready in August as well.
Finally, an editorial about performance-oriented UI guidelines is in progress and should be ready in August or September.
So, stay tuned for new articles to come! The next SAP Design Guild newsletter will be published in September.

SAP Design Guild Newsletter – May 2008 (No. 53, 05/27/2008)

We would like to inform you of the following new additions to the SAP Design Guild Website:

We published a new editorial: The Three Pillars of Human Performance at the Computer – Which One Fits Best?

• The Books & People section offers two new book reviews:
  • The Plenitude by Rich Gold
  • Processing – A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists by Casey Reas and Ben Fry
• In our Stories corner, we have two new CHI-related articles:
  • CHI 2008 – Trip Report by SAP UX colleague Janaki Kumar
  • SAP's Presence at CHI 2008 in Florence, Italy – A Photo Story

In addition, there were a number of minor updates to the Website.

Outlook

We have two book reviews in our pipeline (Press On by Harold Thimbleby and GUI Bloopers 2.0 by Jeff Johnson). We hope to publish the first one in June.

In addition, we plan to publish an article about busy indicators and giving feedback to users in the Design Tidbits corner in June.

SAP Sponsor to the 25th Annual Human-Computer Interaction Lab Symposium

We would like to remind you that SAP has become a sponsor to the 25th Annual Human-Computer Interaction Lab Symposium at the University of Maryland, USA. At the event, the 25th anniversary of the lab will be celebrated.

SAP Design Guild Newsletter – March 2008 (No. 52, 03/19/2008)

We would like to inform you of the following new additions to the SAP Design Guild Website:

• We published a new editorial: SAP at CHI 2008 – Florence, Italy
• The Books & People section offers a review of the book: Information Visualization, 2nd Ed. by Robert Spence
  (We have two more books in our review pipeline and hope to publish a review of The Plenitude this month)
• The Books & People section has also been updated with new profiles of HCI people
• New Design Tidbit User Interface Controls and Interaction Techniques of Horror
• New Design Tidbit Selecting Objects By Attributes (Part I and II)
• In the Accessibility section of the Resources, we published a presentation for the CSUN 2008 conference:
  Adding Additional Accessibility Capabilities to Installed Software After Shipment

In addition, there were number of minor updates, including the addition of a new "golden rule for bad user interfaces."

SAP Sponsor to CHI 2008

We would like to remind you that SAP has become a Champion Sponsor to CHI 2008. The CHI 2008 conference on human factors in computing systems, the world's largest conference in the UI field, will be held in Florence, Italy, from April 5 - 10, 2008. Read the CHI editorial for more information.

Editorial Note

Christine Wiegand, who has been of member of the SAP Design Guild Team from the beginning, left the team in March 2008 for accepting new challenges within SAP User Experience. Thank you, Christine

SAP Design Guild Newsletter – January 2008 (No. 51, 01/23/2008)

We would like to inform you of the following new additions to the SAP Design Guild Website:

We published two new editorials:

• Performance - Merely a Technical Issue? (December 2007)
  Finding Common Ground... (January 2008)
• The Books & People section offers a new review of the book:
  Access by Design by Sarah Horton; this review also concludes our Highlight Topic on Universal Usability
• The Books & People section has been updated with new book presentations and profiles of HCI people;
  Link collections and information pages have been moved to the updated Goodies section
• The Goodies section has a new overview page and some additions from other sections of the site, including glossaries, link collections, and information pages
• The UI Events page lists already a number of conferences and events for 2008
  

We have two more books in our review pipeline. Here are already the links to the review pages - please check them from time to time to find out whether the reviews have been finished:

• Information Visualization, 2nd Ed., by Robert Spence (end of January 2008)
  For this review, the visualization pages have been updated
• The Plenitude by Rich Gold (February 2008)

SAP Sponsor to CHI 2008

We're happy to announce that SAP has become a Champion Sponsor to CHI 2008. The CHI 2008 conference on human factors in computing systems, the world's largest conference in the UI field, will be held in Florence, Italy, from April 5 - 10, 2008.

 

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