Be Visual! Sketching Basics for IT Business (Edition Q2/2021)

Join this free, online openSAP course ‘Be Visual! Sketching Basic for IT Business’ and start learning the very basics of sketching. By applying the practice-oriented tips and tricks in this course, you’ll gain the confidence to present your ideas visually.

This course was retired in October 2023.

Please note: There is a more recent version of this course: Be Visual! Sketching Basics for IT Business (Edition Q4/2021).

Self-paced since May 20, 2021
Language: English

Course information

Retired

This course was retired in October 2023.

Course Summary

Sketching helps you to communicate abstract ideas and transform them into tangible artifacts that can be further explored and validated. With their low fidelity, sketches provide room for interpretation and invite discussion. Sketches also are a starting point for iteration.
Many companies, such as Google, have come to recognize sketching as a powerful communication tool that can be used not only within a team, but also when collaborating with customers.
The openSAP course ‘Be Visual! Sketching Basic for IT Business’ starts with the very basics of sketching. By applying the practice-oriented tips and tricks in this course, you’ll gain the confidence to present your ideas visually. From basic shapes and handwriting to creating storyboards and screen sketches, you’ll be able to use these techniques whether at a flipchart, whiteboard, or at your desk.

Here is what some participants are saying about the course:

  • "I like the way the course is structured, progressively taking us through the various stage to build up the basics and develop skills.…" Read the original post

  • "I have never been confident at sketching and this has been rather pleasing to follow along with the videos and see my sketches improve.…" Read the original post

  • "I liked the structure of the course, the way materials were presented with many real-time examples that were shown during the course.…" Read the original post

Course Characteristics

Course Content

Preparation week: Get your materials ready
Week 1: Sketching Basics and Writing
Week 2: Flow Charts and Screen Sketches
Week 3: Materials and Objects
Week 4: People and Storyboards

Target Audience

Everyone who wants to gain confidence in communicating visually. The content is related to the IT business, but valid for all kinds of disciplines.

Course Requirements

There are no prerequisites.

Previous Versions of This Course:

Previous versions of this course are available here:
Be Visual! Sketching Basics for IT Business (Edition Q1/2017) (February 20 through March 21, 2017)
Be Visual! Sketching Basics for IT Business (Edition Q3/2017) (September 6 through October 12, 2017)
Be Visual! Sketching Basics for IT Business (Edition Q1/2018) (February 6 through March 14, 2018)
Be Visual! Sketching Basics for IT Business (Edition Q3/2018) (September 11 through October 17, 2018)
Be Visual! Sketching Basics for IT Business (Edition Q1/2019) (March 5 through April 10, 2019)
Be Visual! Sketching Basics for IT Business (Edition Q4/2019) (November 8 through December 11, 2019)
Be Visual! Sketching Basics for IT Business (Edition Q2/2020) (May 13 through June 18, 2020)
Be Visual! Sketching Basics for IT Business (Edition Q4/2020) (October 28 through December 3, 2020)

Course contents

  • Course content no longer available

  • Material and Settings

  • Week 1:

    Sketching Basics and Writing
  • Week 2:

    Flow Charts and Screen Sketches
  • Week 3:

    Materials and Objects
  • Week 4:

    People and Storyboards
  • I Like, I Wish:

    We Love Your Feedback … And Want More

Enroll me for this course

The course is free. Just register for an account on openSAP and take the course!
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Learners

Current
Today
5,525
Course End
May 20, 2021
4,760
Course Start
Apr 14, 2021
3,816

Rating

This course was rated with 4.42 stars in average from 278 votes.

Certificate Requirements

  • Gain a Record of Achievement by earning at least 50% of the maximum number of points from all graded assignments.
  • Gain a Confirmation of Participation by completing at least 50% of the course material.

Find out more in the certificate guidelines.

This course is offered by

Johanna Wittig

Senior User Experience Designer

As a member of the UX team at SAP, Johanna Wittig focuses on developing new ideas and concepts for interacting with business applications.

Throughout her professional career, she has worked in multidisciplinary teams with the aim of encouraging a multidisciplinary approach and strengthening a productive exchange across disciplines. Time and again, she has experienced that sketches are an excellent medium to reach this goal.

Since joining SAP, Johanna has been driving several teaching formats for visual communication.

Anja Fehlau

Anja Fehlau leads a team of experts from development, design, and business, with the mission to elevate SAP’s products towards human-centered experiences. In her daily work with multidisciplinary teams, she strives to foster a culture of empathy, creative collaboration, and feedback.

Anja has been a key driver to grow a human-centered innovation culture at SAP by running the global Design Thinking program, facilitating numerous workshops with customers, co-workers, and executives around the globe, coaching project teams, and conducting training programs and lectures. Anja holds a diploma in Media System Design and is a certified Design Thinking Coach.

Follow Anja on LinkedIn

Tatjana Borovikov

User Experience Design Expert

Tatjana Borovikov is a design professional with over thirteen years of hands-on experience in diverse industries such as education, finance, marketing, and manufacturing. She has been involved in projects around interaction and interface design, visual design, responsive design, and product design.

Since 2006, Tatjana has been teaching and applying Design Thinking in numerous innovation projects at SAP, leading design and research efforts.

When working on concepts and scenarios for business applications, she invites all team members to use sketching for clear and direct communication.

Joerg Goeppert

Development Architect

Jörg Göppert is a member of a multidisciplinary team that focuses on innovations around SAP Fiori.

The proof-of-concept projects he works on use Design Thinking. This highly iterative approach requires a very open and agile communication between disciplines. Along the whole process, he uses and promotes sketching techniques such as storyboarding and screen sketching in the design phase, and technical architecture sketches in the development phase.

Jörg believes sketching is a very good tool to build up a common understanding within teams.

Ingo Rues

Ingo Rues is a strategic design consultant currently focusing on envisioning and materializing the next level user experience. He has been innovating, creating, and designing concepts with users’ needs in mind for many years.

Ingo is also a blacksmith, and has built many objects made of metal. This is where his passion for treating material correctly originates from. Professional handling of material is the essential first step towards a great outcome.

When it comes to sketching, Ingo always pays special attention to using materials that best suit the situation and purpose.

Martina Schuh

Former Director Design and POC Development

Martina Schuh led an innovation team of developers, designers, and other roles. The team shaped the SAP Fiori experience by running projects that enable SAP Fiori development and pushed the boundaries of the SAP Fiori experience itself.

Since 2005, Martina has been driving the topic of Design Thinking at SAP. She has applied the approach to software development and strategy projects, and has co-lead the development of the Design Thinking curriculum at SAP.

Whenever Martina works with teams, customers, or colleagues, she encourages everybody to share their ideas visually.