KMD: More Time for Childcare

[Former Member]

SAP UX Design Services and the Danish IT company KMD optimized the user experience of
ordering processes at day care centers, enabling managers to spend more time taking
care of the children.

Results at a Glance:

• Improved UX for ordering processes
• Optimized user interface design
• More time for childcare

You can see the project summary video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSwUjVTZotc

Optimizing the Ordering Process

KMD (Kommune-data), one of Denmark’s leading IT and software
companies, has been offering IT solutions for the local government, central
government, and private sector for 40 years. “We see employees and kindergarten
managers becoming our new user group, more and more. They
have a need for a very simple and targeted interface and low complexity. For them, usability is
implied. It is not even something we discuss with them – it is just expected”,
outlines Sine Dietrich Gregersen, Business Architect, KMD. An SAP partner since 2005, KMD asked SAP to help
them build user optimized solutions for the childcare industry. An SAP User
Experience Design Services team was established to customize the user interface to allow KMD’s end-users who are not from an IT
background, for example, day care managers and employees, to optimize the
standard software according to their specific needs. The goal of the collaboration was to
provide a solution to meet managers’ needs and to enable them to spend more
time taking care of the children.

Identifying and Overcoming Weaknesses

The SAP UX Design Services team tackled the
problem in a structured approach using the Design Thinking method. To discover the manager’s needs, SAP User
Experience Design Services carried out a two-day workshop at a children day
care center and a kindergarten. The team analyzed the existing software and
observed both the managers and the employees at work. The existing software was
designed for ordering new material, but was not fit for purpose as the day care
center needed
to place the same order repeatedly. For this reason, folders and paper
documents were still being used instead of electronic formats. It became clear
that the ordering process had to be simplified.

With this in mind, the SAP UX Design Services team conducted user research in
kindergartens to gain more insights and to develop ideas for an ideal user experience. The team kept the
focus on the end users to design a new user interface
for the re-ordering process. SAP UX Design Services generated end
user-centered concepts that were then validated again at the kindergartens. The
iterations were discussed and the results consolidated together with KMD.

Designing an Optimized User Experience

KMD and SAP User Experience Design Services developed
a prototype for an improved user experience, technically connected to the SAP system. The newly
designed application has been tested successfully at kindergartens and runs on
both desktops and mobile devices. “The work together with the customer was
very beneficial. We came up with new ways to simplify, to optimize the design,
to reduce complexity, to bring up useful defaults to the user and to make the
whole thing much tighter for their needs”, reflected Kai Richter, UI Designer,
SAP AG. SAP UX Design Services has solved the problem in a short period of time
and has enabled the customer and their partners to implement the solution. This
allows the day care center managers to spend more quality time on the essential
tasks of their job, which is taking care of the children.

Customer Testimonial: “We
have been working together with the UI experts from SAP for nearly one year,
struggling to create one of the UIs for our users. So this was a great
opportunity for us to try a new way to work on it”, said Jan Hesthaven, SAP
Program Director, KMD.

Customer Information

• Amongst
  Denmark’s leading software companies
• Strategic
  partnership with SAP since 2005
• IT
  knowledge since it was founded in 1972

SAP User
Experience Design Services Offered

• Design
  Thinking workshop
• Improved
  User Experience
• Delivery
  of a working prototype