Increasing End-User Adoption - and Satisfaction - With New SAP Self-Service Offerings Human Capital Management Newsletter - Spring 2009

By Henry C. Smith, Senior Consultant, Deloitte Consulting LLP

One of the key challenges faced during SAP implementations is successful adoption of the new SAP solution by end-users. For a time, many end-users viewed SAP solutions as somewhat unintuitive, lacking many of the typical usability features found in other applications they rely on every day. But that is changing with the latest generation of SAP portal-based, self-service offerings that provide many opportunities to increase end-user adoption—and satisfaction.

When the subject of usability arises in the context of an information system implementation, the focus is often on “functional” usability. System implementers, for example, tend to place their attention on whether the end-user can execute a business process from a functional perspective. Seldom is the emphasis on what we consider “true” usability or the end-user’s intent, rather than his or her ability to execute a particular business process using a particular information system. In fact, in a system implementation that is focused on usability, the preliminary usability requirements assessment can help identify early in the blueprint phase key challenges associated with SAP-delivered functionality. Identifying issues early in the implementation process affords the implementation team time to devise a solution that will facilitate stakeholder buy-in and end-user adoption.

So what is usability-focused design all about? One popular impression is that it is all subjective, with very little science behind it. In fact, the opposite is true. The International Standards Organizations (ISO) defines usability as " The extent to which a product can be used by users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use."  (ISO  9241-11:1998). Deloitte’s usability-focused services are designed around a standardized approach that incorporates internationally accepted and effective usability practices. The approach involves gathering requirements for the design of a product, service, or system that are based on the user’s intent, evaluating the design against an established usability baseline, and then using insights from the evaluation to refine the design. And the design process is iterative—always allowing for refinements in the design that are based on end-user feedback.

So, as mentioned earlier, the first step in the approach is to understand the end-user’s intent when trying to execute a process or transaction. This involves understanding the end-user’s goals and priorities and then rationalizing them against the real-world process requirement. Some of the typical activities that take place during this step include user profiling, goal, task, and information analysis. Typical deliverables of this initial step include user profiles, task flow diagrams, information architecture specifications, and a usability baseline assessment. The baseline assessment should be considered a living document that is updated continually throughout the design process to reflect progress towards achieving established usability goals.

This first step occurs during the blueprint phase when “to-be” business processes are being designed and at the juncture where a focus on usability can help facilitate the adoption of the new process design. Key end-users and stakeholders should be brought into the design process to encourage stakeholder buy-in to the proposed solution. Bringing in stakeholders who are external to the core implementation team can also help with the discovery of other unstated requirements that are not directly related to the business process design but which may be very important from a solution adoption perspective.

Another benefit of the early engagement of key stakeholders in the design process is the significant reduction in one of the most costly areas of a system implementation — rework. Very often reworks of designs or entire implementation approaches come about due to lack of alignment of objectives among key stakeholders. These reworks can be costly, because they often take place during the most critical phases of the project: the critical window of time between the end of the development and the beginning of the testing cycles.

Step two involves prototyping the design based on system requirements and then measuring it against commonly accepted usability standards. Evaluation of the proposed design against standards is typically part of a heuristic assessment of the design produced by a usability subject matter advisor. The other aspect of assessing the usability of the design involves end-users. The methodology that supports our approach employs several effective practices for soliciting end-user feedback, including surveys, one-on-one interviews and focus groups. In soliciting feedback, our approach keys-in on four primary dimensions of usability: efficiency, accuracy, recall and emotional response. This method helps focus the design not only on the efficiency and accuracy with which the end-user can execute the process but also on the end-user’s ability to recall the steps of the process with limited support from documentation. The last dimension deals with producing a design that elicits a positive response from the end-user. A positive response to a system increases the likelihood that the end-user will be inclined to adopt the system or process. Deliverables from this step in the process typically include wireframes and other mockups, a revised baseline assessment, end-user feedback assessments and usability testing results.

Step three of the usability-focused design process involves analyzing insights from the end-user feedback sessions and user testing to identify areas for improvement. The key deliverable from this step is a key report on findings and recommendations. This is used to make modifications to the overall design, after which the entire design process is repeated starting with the evaluation of the design against user intent and usability baseline metrics.

At Deloitte, we clearly believe that usability should be a critical component of any system implementation, because it can help address one of the major causes of unsuccessful implementations: failure of end-user adoption. A user-centric design approach can help facilitate adoption of new business systems whether the changes are in manual procedures or in technology supported business processes.

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