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Alpaca Operator

Modernizing a near-20 year old SAP System Manager

TL;DR

I worked closely with SAP System Administrators and the founder of Alpaca Operator to structurally and visually update it, improving usability.

Role
Product Designer · Product workshops, UI/UX
Timeline
1 year
Team
1 designer · 6 engineers · PO · PM
Product Page
Display sample of the webpage stacktrack
Problem

Clutter made Alpaca Operator cumbersome to use

Alpaca was built by System Admins for System admins, each feature added when and where it was needed at the time, leading to a confusing usability experience over time.

Frustrating processes
No clarity
Opportunity

Help hidden features shine

Spring clean features to distill what is needed and what is clutter, structure the UI for clarity and return usability to the tool.

How can we help users find the features they are looking for faster?
At a glance

A lean, elegant solution for very complex work.

The work covered workshops, product strategy, interaction design, UI, and accessible handoff.

Surface
Responsive web portal
Audience
SAP System Admins
Stage
Shipped
Methods
Workshops, strategy, UI/UX
"

"Alpaca can do everything you could dream of, it's finding the features that's the problem."

Research Synthesis
User Insights + Product workshops
Research Insights

Operational expertise met design perspective

Combining my perspective as a new user and a UX professional with the expertise of SAP System Admins and the founder of Alpaca in workshops shaped the new direction.

Product workshops
User Insights
Complex Processes
01
Complexity would need to be tempered with presentation
Users needed to be able to find features quickly and consistently.
02
Trust is a retention feature
Creating consistent interaction patterns would elevate the tool
03
The bottleneck was naturally grown
Organic expansion of features as-needed had created a maze of interlocking processes.
Key Screens

Three moments that make SAP System management easy

The monitoring view structures systems, the process definition offers clean workflow versioning, the import makes integration easy.

01 - Orient
stacktrack dashboard v2
02 - Modify
stacktrack skill explorer view v2
03 - Create
stacktrack feedback cycle view v2
Standardized UI System

Implementation speed beat fancy UI

To handle the massive amount of frontend work neccessary on Alpaca in a relatively timely manner, I decided to rely on a pre-existing component library (Material UI) instead of re-inventing the wheel.

01
02
03
04
05
Button Text
Enter description
Feature tradeoff

From "everything'' to ''everything good''.

The initial feature scope was so bloated that it took us several months to even find the full set of all available features.

stacktrack skill explorer view v2
Product Quality

Accessibility carried through implementation

Detailed handoff documentation helped engineering meet WCAG 2.2 AA and EAA requirements without a later compliance retrofit.

Large, legible controls
WCAG 2.2 AA contrast
Clear validation and recovery
Responsive portal
Implementation guide
Learnings

What I'd carry into the next Project

The biggest impact came from simply understanding the product. Taking the time initially to get to know both the users as well as the tool made reworking the UI/UX much easier later on.

01
Get to know the product and the users
Understanding  what they needed from Alpaca made structuring content and organising features easier.
02
Restraint can create more value
Removing duplicate features and unused processes returned clarity to the tool.
03
Design the decision, not just the screen
The highest-leverage work was clarifying process logic before refining interface details.

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User Centered

Every product decision is made to inform, support and enable users. This is what ultimately generates revenue.

Structured

I make sure that interactions feel natural and visual hierarchy is clear. I test my ideas and base decisions in data.

Accessible

The products I create are designed with accessibility in mind. This also means my solutions are robust and scalable.

Have a project in mind?

Say Hi 👋
‍

dier.quinn@gmail.com

Design & content by Quinn Dier. Made with WebFlow.