SAIC is the largest employee-owned research and engineering firm in the United States. An internal application called Stock Administration System (SAS) is used to maintain its distribution and report on SAIC stock. Currently, SAIC leverages a green screen application based on mainframe technology.

Comprised of 40 full-time employees and temporary contractors, the stock department is accountable for 40,000 transactions, four times a year. Additional reports are routinely provided to internal directors and the federal government. Processing functions must be as speedy and accurate as the employees.

Challenge:
SAIC has chosen to replace its existing mainframe application with a Web-based system, leveraging J2EE and BEA Web portals. This involves the transition from a fast application to a much slower Web-based system.

Solution:
UX came up with a plan to prepare for their shift. We converted transaction processes and account requirements into user paths, enabling SAS users to complete processing more efficiently as part of a normal user path. Transactions were appropriately grouped, permitting users to complete more tasks on single pages. Overall screen real estate was designed to maximize workspace and provide key contextual information across new applications.

Unlike most applications, our proposition used forms uniquely. They were broken up into categories, allowing users to find the elements they needed to update without viewing the entire form. They were also effectively segmented. Infrequently modified information was hidden, and frequently modified information was shown first. Access to save functions was present on all form segments.