Summary
Sam Yen, Chief Design Officer for SAP, talks to Enterprise UX 2017 about how human-centered design is driving technology and ultimately, change within an organization.
Key Insights
-
•
Doug Engelbart’s original vision emphasizes technology as amplifying human capabilities, not replacing humans.
-
•
SAP’s user experience was once so disjointed it amassed over 300,000 unique screens, hindering usability.
-
•
SAP’s early founders organically used design thinking principles long before the methodology was named.
-
•
Executive sponsorship is necessary but insufficient to drive design transformation; grassroots and customer engagement are critical.
-
•
Design thinking’s greatest value lies in problem finding—identifying the right problems—before problem solving.
-
•
Introducing design artifacts and enforceable design gates in enterprise processes significantly raised product quality.
-
•
Organizational psychology shows stressed teams need comfort zones before they can embrace exploratory innovation.
-
•
The enterprise sector faces a severe shortage of designers compared to consumer tech, with ratios sometimes at 1 designer per 1000 developers.
-
•
SAP uses design thinking not only internally but also as a consulting method to help customers build their innovation capabilities.
-
•
Democratizing design education and fostering diversity in design are essential to creating lasting impact across industries.
Notable Quotes
"Are we excited to go to work in the technology industry to remove jobs and eliminate the human from the equation?"
"Technology should not aim to replace humans, rather amplify human capabilities."
"In a nuclear war, the only things that would survive on Earth would be cockroaches and these old SAP screens."
"Innovation equals creativity times execution."
"Most organizations are good at execution, but struggle to scale creativity throughout their teams."
"Design thinking is simply doing a little problem finding before problem solving."
"Talent hits a target that no one else can hit; genius hits a target that no one else can see."
"Introducing design gates allowed us to finally stop the shipment of bad products."
"Space matters, but don’t start with the space; start by changing people, processes, and mindsets."
"If your best customers say they want to engage through design thinking, that’s where you get the most traction."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"If we haven’t defined and branded ourselves, others will—and others could be wrong."
Molly FargotsteinMultipurpose Communication & UX Research Marketing
September 12, 2019
"We used ChatGPT to help generate practical risk mitigations for bulk purchasing of point-of-sale systems in FinTech."
Fisayo Osilaja[Demo] The AI edge: From researcher to strategist
June 4, 2024
"Early touchscreen technology was considered useless and suffered from gorilla arm fatigue."
Samuel ProulxDesigning for Disability, Innovating for Everyone
March 11, 2025
"Keeping something cloud-based accessible is the most complicated because of hundreds of releases per day in continuous integration."
Sheri Byrne-HaberAccessibility at Scale
June 9, 2021
"People not only need insights; they need confidence that they are making the right decisions with those insights."
Hana NagelTurning Research Ripples into Waves
November 8, 2018
"Desktop publishing was the most disruptive change in an industry in the history of the US until now."
Erin MaloneUnderstanding the past to prepare for the future
July 19, 2024
"We’ve worked on news organizations that folded creating content that just went out there into the void."
Patrick Boehler Madison KarasThe service shift: transforming media organizations to create real value through design
November 19, 2025
"Helping users express their individual sustainability values opens more possibilities than enforcing rigid standards."
Mike Brzozowski Laura Palotie Steve Isley Nancy TsangUX in everyday products: Empowering climate conscious choices
July 17, 2024
"Kindness and empathy are a good way to build interest and relationships."
Melissa Eggleston Maya Israni Florence Kasule Owen Seely Andrea SchneiderPractical People Skills for Building Trust on Teams and with Partners
December 9, 2021
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
How can organizations democratize accessibility knowledge among designers, developers, and researchers?
How can ethnographic storytelling contribute to making systems visible in organizations?
How can service design facilitate collaboration and alignment between public and private sector organizations?