SAP iView Guidelines

Updated edition - May 2002

This edition of the SAP iView Guidelines comprises guidelines for the interaction design of iViews. It does not intend to replicate interaction rules found in other SAP guidelines. Instead, it typically presents only rules that are specific to iViews.

Technical information, detailed information on controls, and information on visual design can be found elsewhere. Please refer to the iView Community Web pages, the Portal Development Kit (PDK) documentation, the SAP Portals HTMLB Guidelines (use of HTMLB controls), the SAP Reference Lists (terminology, status icons), and the Recommendations for Charts and Graphics in the SAP Design Guild (use of charts and graphics).

These guidelines address a diverse audience:

  • First, there are the SAP developers: They create iViews using tools and techniques provided by SAP, such as HTMLB and the SAP portal framework. These readers want to know what is available and how they can use it. Here they find the look and feel information and guidelines on how to design user-friendly iViews. Technical issues are covered by other SAP information sources for developers (see above).
  • A second important group of readers are developers outside SAP who want to become part of the iView community and who also want to develop iViews for the SAP portal environment. These developers often cannot use the tools and techniques that SAP developers have at their disposal. These guidelines show them how iViews should look like, that is, which screen elements can be used in iViews, and how iViews should be designed using such building blocks. Thus, even though the technical basis and approach may be quite different from that of the SAP developers, these guidelines help this audience to achieve the same look and feel for iViews.
  • There are also developers outside SAP who can use the SAP tools and techniques; for these readers most of the information applies that is relevant to SAP developers.
  • Finally, there are developers inside SAP who want to go beyond the possibilities provided by SAP tools and techniques. These SAP developers are in a similar position as outside developers who have no connection to SAP tools. They, too, can use these guidelines as source of information on how screen elements should look like and be interacted with - irrespective of whether these are available or not.

Note: The design examples in these guidelines tell developers how iViews should be designed - they do not necessarily mean that ready-made SAP solutions already exist for these examples, although in this edition of the iView guidelines we try to stay within the available options.

Disclaimer: The images presented in these guidelines are for reference only. They are not exact to the detail with respect to exact pixel sizes and spacing, RGB color values, etc. These characteristics may also change without notice, depending on the evolution of the HTMLB library and the SAP Portals portal environment. For exact details, please refer to the HTMLB documentation.

Status

This edition is based on the HTMLB library used for SAP Portals Enterprise Portal 5.0. In some cases, we provide previews of what is to be expected in Enterprise Portal 6.0 or later.

The SAP iView Guidelines will be updated as necessary.

Version 1.0, May 2002

This guideline can be found in Resources on the SAP Design Guild Website (www.sapdesignguild.org).

 

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Source:  SAP iView Guidelines