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Fiori UX & Design

Design Thinking and UX, from the first US SAP AppHaus partner.

Mindset designs and builds the SAP experience people actually want to use. We were the first US-based SAP AppHaus Network partner, with design labs in Minneapolis and Denver, and human-centered design has been our craft since the firm started. That work runs from Fiori apps and custom UI5 extensions to design thinking workshops, UX strategy, accessibility, and design systems. The same discipline that made Fiori usable is now how we design Joule agents. SAP's new Joule Work interface makes the point for us: when natural language becomes the front door to SAP, the moments that stay visual, and the guardrails and trust cues around every agent, are pure design work. Design did not get less important with AI. It got more.

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Fiori UX & Design sketch
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Why now

The front door to SAP changed. The design discipline did not.

The reality

  • A technical S/4HANA upgrade can leave 100+ Fiori apps deployed and unused while long-tenured staff stay in the SAP GUI.
  • Standard Fiori covers the common case, then the actual work hits a gap and people fall back to spreadsheets and email.
  • Adoption is treated as a training problem at the end, when it was a design problem from the start.
  • The interface to SAP went from screen to tile to conversation, and most teams have no one who designs the agent, only people who configure it.

What changes

  • Design before build

    We run design thinking with the people who do the work, shadowing them in their own environment and tools. Then we prototype fast and test, before anyone writes a line of production code.

  • Fiori and UI5 that fit

    We build custom UI5 extensions and Fiori Elements apps around the real process, collapsing multi-screen chores into single-screen tools.

  • Adoption designed in

    We design for the moment of use, so people choose the new experience on their own instead of being trained into it.

  • The same craft, now for agents

    The discipline that made Fiori apps usable now designs Joule agents, including what the agent should do, what it should not do, and when it must ask. See our Joule Agents work.

  • Accessibility and consistency

    WCAG-aware design and a shared design system keep every app looking and behaving like one product, not ten.

Critical insight

SAP now calls design the front door for how partners build AI. We were the first US AppHaus partner, so that is not a pivot for us. It is the home turf we have worked from since the start.

Capabilities

From the first workshop to the agent that ships

One team covers the whole arc of SAP user experience, design through build through adoption. There's no handoff between the firm that designs and the firm that codes.

01

Design thinking workshops

Facilitated sessions in our AppHaus labs or your environment to find the real job-to-be-done and shape what to build.

  • Personas built from real users, not assumptions
  • Rapid prototyping from lo-fi to hi-fi in days
  • A prioritized backlog the build team can start on immediately

02

Fiori app design and build

Custom Fiori apps designed around the actual process and built to SAP standards, on-device and offline where the work needs it.

  • Single-screen tools that replace multi-screen GUI chores
  • Mobile and offline for plant floor and field service
  • Built on Fiori Elements where the pattern fits

03

Custom UI5 extensions

When standard Fiori hits a gap, we extend it with custom UI5 so people stay in one experience instead of falling back to workarounds.

  • Custom controls and freestyle UI5 apps
  • Extensions that respect Clean Core and upgrade safety
  • Integration with S/4HANA, BTP, and embedded AI

04

UX strategy and adoption

A plan to get an entire user base off the GUI and onto the new experience, then measured proof that they stayed.

  • Fiori optimization for stalled launchpads and unused apps
  • Role cleanup and wayfinding so people can find their apps
  • Adoption measured with the System Usability Scale and real usage

05

Joule agent design

We design SAP Joule agents with the same human-centered discipline, including the rejection paths and guardrails most teams forget.

  • Joule Agent Discovery and Design workshop formats
  • A one-page agent brief: data sources, tools, guardrails, success metrics
  • Designing the "no": when an agent escalates or asks before acting

06

Accessibility and design systems

WCAG-aware design and a shared design language so a growing portfolio of apps stays consistent and usable for everyone.

  • Accessibility reviewed against WCAG, not bolted on later
  • Design systems and component libraries across the SAP estate
  • Brand-aligned Fiori themes built on SAP Horizon
Real impact

Adoption you can measure, not just apps you can demo

EcolabEcolab

Mindset built the Ecolab Springboard platform, a Fiori usability layer over SAP, and rolled it out across every division. It hit 99% adoption, cut process approval time by 90%, and one institutional request dropped from 24 hours to 12.

99%

user adoption of the new Fiori solution

Patterson CompaniesPatterson Companies

A Fiori field-service app collapsed multi-step confirmations into one "Complete Visit" click. It reached 85.9% voluntary adoption in 16 weeks and captured $1.3M in annual revenue through more timely doctor communication.

13,000 open service orders under 4,000

60-day open service orders, capturing $1.3M in annual revenue

CargillCargill

A dedicated Mindset product team rebuilt Cargill's most painful SAP workflows into Fiori apps, halving asset maintenance cost and taking processing SLAs from days to hours.

50%

lower asset maintenance cost, SLAs cut from days to hours

Nebraska Public Power DistrictNebraska Public Power District

After a technical S/4HANA upgrade left 100+ Fiori apps unused, Mindset turned roughly eight months of build into a live finance deployment in five weeks, with an estimated 5-20% productivity gain.

8 months of build 5 weeks

72 apps launched, turning a stalled rollout into a live deployment

More Fiori UX & Design work

See all case studies

Consumer and Retail

A national specialty tile retailer gets purpose-built Fiori and point-of-sale apps for its S/4 platform

Read the case study

Consumer and Retail

A major home improvement retailer puts real-time product lookup in store associates’ hands with SAP Fiori

Read the case study

Food and Agriculture

How a global meat-snack manufacturer proved offline Fiori on the plant floor before committing to a full rollout

Read the case study

Energy and Utilities

SAP Fiori apps and S/4HANA custom code readiness for a large public utility

Read the case study

Financial Services

Phase 1 SAP Fiori delivery for a US payments and business services company

Read the case study

Manufacturing

SAP Fiori training and UX advisory for an industrial test and measurement manufacturer

Read the case study

Manufacturing

Building the Fiori and Salesforce UX for a precision manufacturer’s JD Edwards-to-S/4HANA migration

Read the case study

Consumer and Retail

An educational products company builds Fiori apps to surface and resolve stuck orders in real time

Read the case study

Manufacturing

How a global building products manufacturer fixed its SAP order-entry app and stood up BTP

Read the case study
How we engage

Design first, ship fast, prove adoption

We don't show up with a fixed-template workshop and a stack of sticky notes. We sit inside your team, learn the real work, and build artifacts the development team can begin the same week.

  1. Phase 1

    Discover

    1 to 2 weeks

    We shadow real users in their own environment, build personas, and surface the actual pain points. The output is a tight brief, not a binder.

  2. Phase 2

    Design and prototype

    2 to 4 weeks

    We pair design thinking with Agile, moving from lo-fi sketches to a hi-fi prototype we test with users before committing to the build.

  3. Phase 3

    Build

    6 to 12 weeks per app

    We deliver Fiori and UI5 in agile sprints, with users in the loop the whole way. We've shipped a working product in 2 weeks and 72 apps in 5.

  4. Phase 4

    Adopt and extend

    Ongoing

    We handle rollout, training, and adoption measurement, then help your team take the wheel and keep building, including the move toward Joule agents.

Common questions

Questions we hear about Fiori and UX

What makes Mindset different from a typical SAP system integrator on UX?
Most SIs treat design as a phase they subcontract or skip. We were the first US-based SAP AppHaus Network partner, and design has been our founding craft. The same team designs, prototypes, builds, and proves adoption. Nothing gets lost in a handoff.
We already deployed Fiori but nobody uses it. Can you fix that?
Yes, this is common. A technical upgrade often drops 100+ apps that sit unused while people stay in the GUI. We audit what was deployed, clean up roles and wayfinding, and redesign the experiences that matter most. At Nebraska Public Power District, that turned roughly eight months of stalled build into a live deployment in five weeks.
How do you actually measure UX success?
We measure in real numbers, not vibes. We track adoption rate, time per task, the System Usability Scale, and business outcomes like approval time and revenue captured. Ecolab reached 99% adoption with a 90% cut in approval time. Patterson hit 85.9% voluntary adoption and captured $1.3M a year.
How does Fiori design connect to AI and Joule agents?
Design is step one of how we build them, not something added afterward. Every agent starts with a design workshop in our AppHaus to frame the use case, the user, and what the agent actually needs to do, using the same room and the same method as a Fiori project. Our Joule Agents page walks through the four build steps that follow.
Do you handle accessibility and design consistency across many apps?
Yes. We design against WCAG from the start rather than bolting it on. We also set up design systems and component libraries, including brand-aligned Fiori themes on SAP Horizon, so a growing portfolio of apps stays consistent and usable.
Recent thinking

From our Insights.

All Insights
Adjacent practices

More of our SAP technical work.

DevOps for SAP

Ship on-demand without putting the system of record at risk.

Read more

Business Data Cloud

The path from BW to intelligent enterprise

Read more

Clean Core

Get your SAP core standard, governed, and upgrade-safe, so the AI era can be trusted to run on it.

Read more

SAP Joule Agents

An agent factory for SAP

Read more

Application Management Services

SAP support from the people who understand the architecture, not a generic help desk.

Read more

SAP Business AI

Adopt the SAP Business AI Platform without betting your roadmap on one model or one vendor.

Read more

Presented publicly

From the SAP stage.

Talks our team gave on this topic at SAP events. Slides included.

Fiori Innovation Day . Chicago . 2024

Talk to a Fiori UX & Design partner.

Our first call is a working session, not a pitch. Bring a real problem and let’s whiteboard it together.

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