SAP Lumira

SAP Lumira was a cross-platform suite of data analysis and visualization tools. It was released in 2013. It has now been retired in favour of SAP Analytics, a SAAS offering.

THE CHALLENGE

As the first visual designer on the team, my main challenge was to create single-handedly an on-brand, consistent look-and-feel across multiple platforms including: iOS, web, and a thick desktop app.

WHAT I DID

I was responsible for developing a unified visual language, including a typographic system, colour use, and common UI components. I also had to share it with globally distributed teams of interaction designers, developers, and product managers.

RESULT

A predictable and scalable experience for casual business users on an Apple iPad to power users on the desktop client. Other tools picked up the visual language as well, such as SAP Predictive Analytics.

The heart of SAP Lumira

This screen shows the heart of SAP Lumira: making sense of business data using chart-building and data-analysis functionality.

Designing across platforms

Since the target user was someone who'd spend a lot of time iteratively building charts, I focused the visual design on foregrounding the most important part for users: the charts. Controls enabling the users to build the charts are secondary in the visual hierarchy.

Future design explorations

Just one of the many other explorations I did to see how to best pack all of the chart-building functionality for touch. Here I proposed having a "controls" panel at either side. When one was open, the other would partially slide out of view. Content underneath would shift over so it wouldn't be obscured. Panels could also be toggled "open" or "closed."

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