Archetypes: Understanding User Behavior

A tool to deliver on our UX transformation at a design-system level

By Miguel Hidalgo, Design Director and Victoria Duong, Senior Experience Designer, SAP

For SAP, one of the largest enterprise software companies in the world, embarking on a large-scale user experience transformation necessitates the right tools and frameworks to understand today’s enterprise software users.

As a Design organization, we are already pulling from an ever-growing list of best practices, tools, and frameworks that serve different purposes, though these mostly tend to focus on the user experience at the product or features level, and frankly, leave much to be desired in terms of the innovative problem-solving they often promise to deliver.

To cut through the noise and reduce internal complexities within existing tools, we are implementing Archetypes, a bridging tool that can further advance our understanding of who our users are, how they use technology, and what motivates them to take action. Archetypes provide a framework that can be used across the entire SAP ecosystem and which will allow us to enact a user experience transformation at a design-system-level.

A preview of the Archetypes’ avatars with illustrations representing key behaviors around technology for each Archetype.

Informing our design system and strategy with Archetypes

For our specific work with SAP’s design system, SAP Fiori, the Archetypes represent a segmentation of enterprise software users that is rooted in behaviors and preferences relating to their use of technology at work. While SAP already uses data on thousands of personas, these are mostly based on user demographics, roles, and workflows, which is a useful distinction for designing at product level. With the implementation of Archetypes, however, we are aiming to offer insights about our users through a behavioral lens to help inform strategies and systems rather than features and functionalities. For example, we used drivers, or key motivations, as a leading factor in how we segmented our Archetypes. We then structured the various behavioral characteristics, such as tendencies and preferences with technology at work, as different dimensions for each archetype.

Not only clarifying who our users are, but also understanding their nuanced behaviors, is critical for delivering valuable and inclusive products, which is one of the pillars of our user experience transformation. By activating a system of foundational frameworks and tools, we can ensure that we are keeping our users front and center in the entirety of our design and development process, from inception to delivery. This results in better-informed design strategy going forward.

A framework for how Archetypes and Personas can be used together is sketched out with overlapping matrices.

How we worked, and what we learned

It was important — not only to us as team, but in order to gain the trust of the rest of the organization — for our work to exemplify the highest standards of a user-centric practice. These are some of the challenges and takeaways from our approach:

• Remote research is as good as its operations and tools: While we couldn’t completely unburden our research team from performing time-consuming and repetitive tasks as they worked through large data sets, we were able to work around any limitations by balancing automated and manual work, while allocating time for quality control. Nevertheless, this was a good reminder to continue seeking out the best tools and to support teams who want to transform their processes.
• Teams need to scale large qualitative research with quantitative data: Although remote research allowed us to reach users globally, there were limitations to the data collection that would have benefited from additional quantitative data. We don’t currently have the means to aggregate behavioral data across products and even so, it would be against best practices for data privacy. We combatted the gap by expanding our qualitative work as much as possible, reaching 39 interviews with an ambitious timeline that required steady collaboration, constant knowledge transfer, and dedicated resources. For similar projects and future iterations, quantitative data should be considered a prioritized resource.
• Restrictive privacy practices can present a challenge: As a global organization, SAP takes data privacy seriously. Following GDPR best practices, we did not use identifiable information or photos; we referenced participants only by codes. Combined with our vast dataset, synthesis became a challenging memory game. To ensure we remembered our impressions, we took diligent notes and kept the synthesis contained to a short timeline.

Beyond research: Designing a tool for our organization

In its inception, our work with archetypes was not meant to be solely research-based. An essential part of our focus was indeed to create an effective tool for SAP to easily adopt. Towards this end, we had three primary considerations for the design of the tool: Formats and access, taxonomy, and scalability.

An example of how the Archetype Cards can be inserted into a Figma file and how the fidelity of information can be changed.

Formats and Access

As we considered how our colleagues would use the Archetypes, we recognized that use cases might vary based on roles and responsibilities. Still, we can ensure the tool is as easy-to-use and accessible as possible. Therefore, we made the work broadly available and compatible with different working needs. This includes making presentation recording available, packaging readout decks, storing everything in our centralized file sharing, and setting up spaces for questions and feedback.

In addition to having all these deliverables, we turned the readouts into a Figma prototype with simple wayfinding, and released a library of “Archetype Cards,” which are Figma assets designed like player cards that our colleagues can place in Figma and FigJam files to easily reference and adapt according to their information needs.

Taxonomy

Clear taxonomy can significantly affect the usability of a tool. This is why we paid careful attention to the wording we used and made sure that the terminology was consistent throughout. To avoid ambiguity, we added in in-place definitions whenever necessary and included a separate glossary. We captured more nuanced learnings in summarized and streamlined representations that could easily be compared between Archetypes.

Examples of the use of consistent taxonomy within the Archetype Cards. A glossary and in-text definitions

Scalability

The Archetypes are designed to be a living resource that need to be continually updated, validated, and expanded upon. We named this set of archetypes the “Starter Pack” because our users will inevitably evolve, technology and the world will change, and these can be expanded to include more behaviors of enterprise software users.

A framework fitting for enterprise scale

With this initial version of the Archetypes, we’re excited for the potential impacts of its implementation and the role it may play in shaping future SAP products. We introduced this framework to inform our design system and strategy, and already we are beginning to see how it translates into the work of product teams at an application-level as they have started to leverage the insights to inform their own research and processes.

A user experience transformation at enterprise scale does not materialize from a single intervention; it is a sum of our collective effort as one SAP, where everyone plays a pivotal role. We are optimistic that this work will support our design and development teams in doing their best work and to build more informed human-centered experiences.

As we designed this tool for our organization, considering formats, taxonomy, and scalability, we couldn’t help but reflect on how the practice standards in design and research have reshaped product teams’ roles over time. Here’s a perspective we invite you to consider: Perhaps the jobs of teams looking to affect the trajectory of their product experiences could be less about building specific products and more about creating tools and resources to empower others to do their best work.

Credits

This effort was only possible due to the great work executed across the organization. We would like to recognize and appreciate: Halle Kho, TJ Keitt, Malini Leveque, Brian Banton, Dan Watters, Ellie Kemery, Susann Graeff, Sylvie Charpentier, Aidan McHugh, Andrea Waisgluss, Carolin Buzek, Chenchen Gu, Jenni Chan, Magoz, Nneka Njoku, Nisha Balaraman.

Miguel Hidalgo is a Design Director for SAP Design’s Strategic Foresight team. With a background in design and technology, Miguel is interested in exploring and experimenting with experience paradigms and interaction models to help shape the future of enterprise software — leveraging research and strategy to reimagine the role of technology in the workplace.

As a Senior Experience Designer on SAP Design’s Strategic Foresight team, Victoria Duong is focused on advancing the user experience of SAP products by navigating the crossroads of research, design, and product strategy. With a multidisciplinary background in design and having helped companies of various sizes transform their digital products, she is passionate about creating sustainable and inclusive experiences that leave a meaningful impact.