Improving Mobile Solution Workflows and Usability Using ... - CiteSeerX

Improving Mobile Solution Workflows and Usability Using Near Field Communication Technology Päivi Jaring, Vili Törmänen, Erkki Siira, and Tapio Matinmikko VTT Technical Research Center of Finland, 90571 Oulu, Finland {paivi.jaring,vili.tormanen,erkki.siira,tapio.matinmikko}@vtt.fi

Abstract. Organisations want nowadays more controlled processes and easily usable solutions, but achieving them requires winning many challenges. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) based technology has been proposed for improving mobile solution workflows and usability. NFC (Near Field Communication) technology is based on integrating RFID on mobile devices. This paper identifies how NFC based systems could be used to improve mobile solution workflows and usability. The results of this study are based on the implementation of six pilot cases in 2005-2007. This paper concludes that use of NFC provides both advantages and disadvantages and, therefore, to estimate the potential of NFC, its pros and cons have to be weighed up for each case in question. This paper also concludes that only a comprehensive solution achieves the full potential of NFC from users’ point of view. Considering mobile solution usability, this paper concludes that NFC based solutions are easy to use, but the small and limited keyboard of mobile devices poses challenges to the design of these solutions. NFC use poses new organizational challenges like need for the rest of the system to catch up and feeling of distrust from the user side. Keywords: NFC, RFID, mobile, workflow, usability.

1 Introduction Organisations want nowadays more and more controlled workflows and easily usable systems, but achieving these requires winning obstacles caused for example by mobile/remote work and usability limitations of mobile devices. Workers whose work has been somewhat mobile or remote, i.e. the worker works at customer site or some other location chosen by him [1][2], have partly caused difficulties in achieving controlled workflows. Mobile workers include for example travelling managers, field workers and emergency rescuers [3]. Mobile solution workflows are work processes realized by mobile workers using a mobile device. Common problems that organisations with mobile workers encounter include the following: - limited access to information and data collection applications in the field, - manual use of pen and paper in the field causes a lot of paperwork when the

worker is back at the office, - manual re-entry of the collected data enhances the risk of making errors, - outdated client information/service history, and - outdated site/product/service instructions. [4] B. Schiele et al. (Eds.): AmI 2007, LNCS 4794, pp. 358–373, 2007. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007

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Usability defines the extent to which specified goals defined by users can be achieved [5]. To gain user acceptance a solution has to: - support user tasks and goals, which means that the actions offered should correspond to what they want to do; - acknowledge the strengths and limitations of people and technologies, which means that the application keeps its users in charge of activities; and - fit into the users’ big picture, i.e. to the several aspects outside the immediate focus of the work [6]. Designing a user-friendly solution requires taking the following characteristics of contexts into account - physical context, i.e. variable lighting conditions, noise, varying climate, physical moving of the user, - social context, i.e. need to share information with others [7] - tasks and organizational characteristics [5], and - environment, which includes the physical context but also hardware, software and materials [5]. For improving mobile solution workflows and usability, Vuorinen [4] proposes using RFID based technology that along NFC is one of the most common technologies to implement the touching paradigm. In the touching paradigm the interaction in the environment is realized by bringing the mobile device into contact or very close to a smart object. Touching as an interaction method is natural to humans as we often touch things we want to use. [8, 9] Studies have shown that the touching paradigm is easy to learn and intuitive to use [8]. The basic idea behind RFID is that items are marked with tags that contain transponders that emit messages readable by specialized RFID readers. NFC is based on integrating already existing RFID technology [10] to mobile devices such as mobile phones. In this study RFID is defined as an underlying technology of NFC, i.e. use of the terms is very close to each other. NFC has been defined in standards [11, 12] as a short-range wireless technology that allows device communication in close proximity [13]. NFC is evolved from the earlier near-field RFID contactless identification and interconnection technologies such as ISO14443, MIFARE and FeliCa [14]. NFC-device can communicate with another NFC enabled device or communicate with a RFID/NFC-tag [15]. All tags have a 4 to 10 byte long unique ID number, which can effectively be used to identify the tag. As the IDs vary between different manufacturers and technologies, collisions may occur with multiple manufacturers. The most interesting RFID applications include the ones for supply chain management, security, and tracking of objects and personnel [16]. The advantages of the RFID based systems are the following: 1) real time updating of data, 2) removal of human error, 3) integration of different modules, 4) ability to manage product’s whole lifecycle, 5) ability to remote support [17], and 6) real-time access to information and applications. RFID technology, though being used in logistics for decades, is a novel concept when used with mobile phones or other devices over a network connection. The main challenges of mobile devices targeted to non-technical users are limited input/output facilities, which include small screens, poor audio output, limited keyboard both in

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size and number of keys [18]. The mobile workers of today are familiar with mobile phones, but use of RFID enabled phones is an unknown territory for them. For example in the pilot 6, the maintenance men report, instead of using the traditional per and paper -method, their inspections several times a week via mobile phone by answering to the questions sent them by the back end system. This paper illustrates how NFC can be used to improve mobile solution workflows and usability. 1.1 Scope of the Study All the pilots presented in this study were done in the city of Oulu, Finland. Finland has been selected as the target country of the pilots, because of 1) the extensive coverage of mobile phones in the country [19] and 2) the potential of remote work due to long distances provide a good environment for NFC use. Table 1 explains the pilots in more detail. Service provider means in this study a company that provides the service and service user a company that uses the service. In pilots 1-3 the service provider (SP) and user is the same company; in pilots 4-6 the service user and -provider are different companies. In this study, the term user refers to both genders although we have used the terms he/his when referring to a user. The companies functioning as service providers and -users were selected to this study based on their 1) existing active involvement in use of mobile technologies in improving organizational issues, and 2) the need of solving existing real life problems by using NFC. The specific pilots were selected into this study, because 1) we wanted to find various kinds of application areas where NFC could be used, and 2) each of the pilot cases involved organizational issues and problems that needed to be improved. Experiences from the pilots were collected by interviewing the service users and managers of the service user organization. Users of each pilot -except the pilot 1were interviewed face-to-face. In pilot 1, the two user groups were sent the questions beforehand by email and 2-3 representatives per user group replied them in an interview. The interviewees had to answer six open-ended questions concerning: 1) usefulness of the pilots, 2) advantages and disadvantages that occurred when using the pilots, 3) their feelings considering use of the touching paradigm, and 4) deficiencies/improvements in the pilot use. The interviewed managers represented the management level of each organization in the pilot implementation. The interviews of the managers were free-form, i.e. the interviewees analyzed in an open discussion the true causes and effects of NFC use. A freeform interview was chosen because the organizations were different and problems the NFC-based solutions tried to solve were different. 1.2 Goal and Outline This paper aims to identify how NFC based systems could be used to improve the mobile solution workflows and usability. The experiences received from NFC use in this study are based on implementation of six pilot cases in 2005-2007. The presented pilots are categorized into two groups as presented in section 3.

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This paper contributes RFID/NFC related research by presenting implementation of six real pilot cases for solving real organizational issues and problems in various application areas. As there is not much research available in this area, contributions presented in this paper are worthwhile for other researchers in the domain. The paper is composed as follows. Section two presents the related research after which the pilot cases and their rationale are presented. Section four presents results received from applying NFC to the pilots. The paper is concluded by an outline to further research topics.

2 Related Research Considering the impact of NFC on organization in general there is not too much research available. Most of the research considering RFID/NFC use is focused on the use of RFID in logistical solutions and supply chain management. The related research presented in this section focuses on RFID/NFC use from the viewpoint of mobile solution workflows and usability. Michael and McCathie handle in their article [20] pros and cons of RFID in supply chain management. According to their research, RFID reduces labor and enhances visibility, but is on the other hand costly and lacks standardization. Chuang and Shaw evaluate in their article [21] the impact of RFID on supply chain networks. According to them, RFID can improve operational efficiencies, increase visibility and eliminate errors, but is costly to implement. Lefebvre et al. examine in their article [22] the potential of RFID in warehouse activities. They conclude that RFID eliminates inefficiencies, adds value to processes and increases electronic integration between supply chain members. According to them, RFID also poses several challenges to organizations including need for radical changes to existing business processes and strain on the capacity to manage all received data. Yoon et al. show in their research [17] prototype of RFID enabled aircraft maintenance system that is integrated with part management system. According to their research, the implementation of their RFID pilot will have many advantages compared to the existing system, for example removal of human error, ability to manage whole product lifecycle. Norman presents in his book [23] seven principles how to transform difficult tasks into easy ones. The presented principles help the designers to take user centerd design into account. According to Norman [23] designers should make sure “that the user can figure out what to do and the user can tell what is going on”. Belt et al. present in their paper [24] a study of user perceptions on mobile interaction with visual and RFID-tags. Most of the users of their study viewed RFID as being quick, taking less effort, and feeling natural compared to visual tags. The users of their study were not familiar with the concept of RFID and were surprised on unexpected access to networked data resources. The study also revealed potential usability risks with the mobile interaction with RFID and visual tags. The study also showed that there are no existing practises and mental models for the usage of the tags in the studied consumer domain. Välkkynen and Tuomisto study in their research [25] physical browsing by using passive long-range RFID-tags. They concluded that from users’ point of view

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invisibility of RFID-tags can cause problems such as: 1) how can a user know what action of functionality will follow from activating a link, and 2) how does a user know what part of the object the link is if he knows of its existence etc. Salminen et al. compared in their study [26] a standard Bluetooth device and service discovery method with RFID based service selection by asking users to print a short note with application and printer service. Fourteen out of fifteen users of their study preferred the RFID enhanced method, because of the following reasons: 1) it was faster to use 2) there was no need for menu selections, and 3) it was easier or more pleasant to use. One user of the study preferred RFID based method, because it was seen as a less technical method. Some users of the study regarded the RFID based method unreliable or untrustworthy.

3 Pilot Cases This section presents the six pilots of this study and rationale for the information gathered from the pilots. The pilots presented in this section are divided into two categories based on the information they gather. In the first category (pilots 1, 3 and 4) the pilots gather only location- and timestamp- information, i.e. the users report their location that is mapped with timestamp to gather log to know where he has been and when. In Figure 1 the process for gathering location- and timestamp-information is marked with number 1. In the second category (pilots 2, 5 and 6) the users report the location and timestamp, but also some additional information, so a user has to complete both processes 1 and 2 of Figure 1.

Fig. 1. Basic processes of the pilot applications

Implementation and deployment of the software of pilots 1, 2 and 4-6, all user training, mid-pilot oversights and gathering post-pilot information were done by VTT (The Technical Research Centre of Finland). The pilot 3 was implemented in cooperation with VTT and a RFID system integrator. The oversights included technical support for the users and overall surveillance on how the pilot was working. Table 1 presents the six pilots of this study, their user amount, the category, aim of each pilot and the users involved. The duration of all the pilots was 8-12 weeks.

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The pilots are presented in the following section in timely order based on their realization. This following section presents the pilots in more detail. 3.1 Pilot 1: Work Time Management The pilot was realized in the autumn 2005. All users of the pilot were employees of the service provider/user from two different administrative organizations. Of the pilot users, six were maintenance workers from the main swimming hall and 10 librarians from four different branch libraries. Before implementing the pilot the participants used the classic pen and paper -method for keeping track of their working times. The pilot users reported their work time by using the following process: 1) the user touches his individual ID-tag to confirm his identity as the current device user and 2) the user touches the location tag to confirm where he is. Phases 1 and 2 are realized when arriving to a work place and when leaving it.

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3.2 Pilot 2: Driver’s Log The pilot was implemented in the autumn 2005 with five users who were employees of the SP. The users’ work includes lots of driving with own car and thus they are entitled to compensations for each driven kilometer. To gain the compensations the users need to fill a travel expense form. Filling the expense form requires keeping a detailed log about the trips. The pilot application itself had not special features and its’ ease of use made using it possible also for non-technical users. The process for using the pilot was the following: 1) the user touches his operational tag and the application is launched automatically, 2) the user fills appropriate fields, and 3) the data is sent to the backend system. 3.3 Pilot 3: Logistics The pilot was implemented in the autumn 2006 as a part of NFC enabled catering service pilot. The participants of the pilot were five service provider/user’s drivers, whose job is to distribute daily meals to elderly people. Before implementation of the pilot there was no formal control for tracking the realization of the delivery route. As tracking the delivery route is used for billing or route optimization, there is a need for the route control. In the NFC enabled process of the pilot, the route control was realized in the following way: 1) the user touches his individual ID-tag to confirm his identity, 2) when leaving for the route the user touches a correct “start route x” –tag on a kitchen wall, 3) when delivering a meal the user touches a tag in an elderly’s house, and 4) when finishing the route the user touches the “end route” tag on a kitchen wall. 3.4 Pilot 4: Cleaning The pilot was realized in the autumn 2006 with two users of the SP. The work of the users included cleaning meeting rooms and other premises. Before implementing the pilot, the time spent for cleaning each individual room was roughly estimated and the actual time was not traced. The pilot users reported cleaning time of each room by using the following process: 1) the user touches his individual ID-tag to confirm his identity, 2) when entering a room for cleaning the user touches a tag in that room, 3) when the cleaning has been finished and the user is leaving the room, he touches the same tag in a room, and 4) at the end of day, the user touches his ID-tag to end work shift. 3.5 Pilot 5: Meter Reading The pilot was implemented in the autumn 2006 in the same project with pilot 4. The participant of the pilot was SP’s maintenance man, who routinely reported electricity and water meter readings. Before implementing the pilot, the maintenance man used pen and paper-method for recording the meter id and its reading. Afterwards the readings were transferred to an excel-worksheet that was forwarded to the responsible person. With the help of a NFC enabled mobile phone, the maintenance man reported the meter readings in the following way: the user 1) touches the tag identifying the

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meter and 2) enters the meter reading in the phone. The phases 1 and 2 are repeated until all meters in the room are read. 3.6 Pilot 6: Maintenance The pilot was implemented at the beginning of 2007. In the pilot, two maintenance men of the service user/provider reported their daily inspections in different parts of the facility. Before implementing the pilot, the reporting was done weekly via electric service manual. In the NFC based solution, the maintenance men reported their inspections several times a week via mobile phone by answering to the questions sent them by the back end system. The process for reporting the inspections in the pilot was the following: 1) at the beginning of the day the user touches his ID-tag to identify himself, 2) in each location the user touches the attached tag, 3) the user answers to the questions sent by the system, and 4) at the end of the work shift, the user touches his ID-tag. The phases 2 and 3 are repeated in every inspection location.

4 Results of Applying NFC to the Pilots This section presents the advantages and disadvantages of NFC use for mobile solution workflows and usability based on the experiences received from the pilots. Additionally this section presents general challenges/problems of NFC use to the organisation and solving them in the pilot cases. 4.1 Advantages and Disadvantages of NFC Use for Mobile Solution Workflows As an advantage of NFC use, based on the six pilot cases, are seen: - Ability to decrease or eliminate duplicate work. The duplicate work was caused

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by an inefficient process where the data was first entered to paper and then moved into electronic form when user had access to a computer. Reducing users’ memory payload. The payload was caused by several facts: 1) the pen/paper-bookkeeping was not always up to date, 2) there was not available right equipment for the bookkeeping or 3) there was no time for the bookkeeping. When the bookkeeping was not up to date, the user needed to memorize the facts until he had chance to update the files. Decreasing the amount of user made errors. Decreasing the amount of duplicate work decreased the user made errors, because the amount of opportunities to make errors was diminished. Increased capability of the system to verify user actions. Implementing the pilots enabled the system to verify that someone had been in a location at certain time and report accurately when the work was made. Increased demonstrability and verifiability that are important features in relationships between organisations. Contracts, laws, etc. give some prerequisites for the operations and in a case of disagreement it is good to have verifiable data to back up the claims of each party.

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As disadvantages of NFC use were seen the following points: - Shifting the bottleneck forward in the chain if information that is entered into the

process in electronic form becomes unnecessarily manual in later phases. - Investment needed for integrating the systems. To avoid shifting the bottleneck forward in the chain (see the previous point) all systems within the organization and between organizations has to be integrated and the data has to be turned into electronic form. Without integration, the advantages achieved in one spot will be eliminated in later phases. - Limitations caused by the small user interface of the mobile device. Based on the pilot user experiences, the mobile device’s keyboard seems to hinder the advantages of NFC. Although the touching based -interactions reduce the time needed for the task, the input via mobile device’s keyboard is cumbersome. Thus from usability point of view the traditional pen/paper-method can be competitive, even if it means losing some other advantages like real time support. - Investments needed for purchasing separate devices for reading the tags. As the selection of mobile phones that support reading RFID tags is limited, using NFC means additional investment from the SP on the phones that are able to read tags. 4.2 Advantages and Disadvantages of NFC Use for Mobile Solution Usability Considering the user experience, in the pilot cases the most interesting points of view were: 1. 2.

How users experienced the touching paradigm, i.e. how touching by using a mobile phone feels. Users touched the tags for several reasons such as to launch the application, to identify themselves as users or to make time stamp. How NFC-technology can advance use of mobile technology in work environment. Table 2 summarizes the user experiences received from the pilots. Table 2. Summary of the pilot user experiences Gained usability advantage/disadvantage from users’ point of view Touching paradigm (question 1) Easier usability: 1. touching the tags was experienced to be an easy way to get information from tags, 2. it was possible for the applications to start up with touching the tag, 3. there was no manual entry needed for identifying the user or place, 4. less need for textual input.

Achieved in pilots

Points 1 and 2 realized in all pilots. Point 3 realized in pilots 1 and 3-6. The point 4 realized in pilot 4, where the users only needed to use checkboxes and check them to report that everything was ok; only if there was some problem the users needed to write a short textual commentary about the problem.

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Table 2. (continued) Advancing mobile technology in work environment (question 2) Improved accuracy Pilot 1: more accurate time stamps for the working hour lists. Reducing users’ memory pay- Pilots 2 and 6: before implementation of the pilots, the load users had to memorize their driving kilometres, places, amount of persons aboard and project numbers → now they can immediately fill the entries at the beginning and end of the trip. Decreasing the phases in work All pilots: the users regarded transfer into an electronic flow by changing paper work way positively. into electronic form Pilot 2: the acceptor of an expense form did not have to guess the handwriting as all the notes were printed. Providing “electronic pipe” to Pilot 5: before implementing the pilot: 1) the reading deliver information. was typed to the paper, 2) the correspondence between the figure on the paper, the figure of the meter and the ID of the meter was checked, and 3) the reading was transferred into electronic form → now the ID of the meter was read from the tag and the figure was checked simultaneously → removal of manual input. Removing unnecessary driving Pilot 6: some of the users liked the fact that they could from and to the office. enter the relevant information from their inspection route immediately as it 1) removed the need to visit PC (Personal Computer) after the route to fill the electronic service manual and 2) “forced to do the inspection with good care”. Using the system difficult due Pilot 4: the fact that the tags were hidden made them to hidden tags. free from vandalism, but it also made the system 1) impossible to be used by temporary work force and 2) difficult to use at the beginning as the cleaners had difficulties to remember the tag locations.

Table 3 presents the realization of requirements for user friendliness in pilots. Table 3 concludes that the goals for user friendliness and contexts were taken into account in the pilots, but they did always have impact on the user experience. Table 3. Realization of user friendliness in pilots Goal for a solution to gain user acceptance

Achieved in pilots

Support user tasks and goals

Yes/no. All pilots except 3 and 4 supported fully users’ tasks and goals. Pilots 3 and 4 were not seen to be valuable to the end-users, but only to managers and supervisors.

Acknowledge the strengths and limitations of people and technologies

Yes. The pilot users were assumed to be novice mobile phone users, and therefore all applications were built as simple as possible. Small screen size and poor text input properties of mobile devices were taken into account when building the applications.

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Fit into users’ big picture

Yes. In pilot 1, the organizational culture was the key aspect that impacted the acceptance of accurate time stamping system in users’ big picture. In pilots 2 and 5 no extra time was needed for handling the information several times. In pilots 3 and 4 the application did not improve the work processes, but the pilots were seen to be useful in assisting work planning.

Contexts that has to be taken into account Environment (software, hardware, materials, physical context)

In Pilot 6 a mobile phone was a natural way for maintenance man to make reports on the inspection route. Achieved in pilots Yes. In pilot 1 the requirement for an application to make a ‘beep’ when a tag is read, was inappropriate for the library employees, because they were used to the fact that beeping does not necessarily mean anything. The pilot 3 brought fourth phone for the use of the driver as he already had an own phone, a work phone and a car’s phone. Thus carrying an additional phone generated negative feelings to use the application. The conclusion was that the work phone should have been NFC enabled to avoid carrying additional devices. In pilots 4-6 the working environment did not bother the use. The temperature of the working environment varied between +20°C and -20°C degrees and especially the cold temperature was taken into account by reducing the amount of keyboard use to minimum.

Tasks and organizational characteristics

Yes. In designing the pilots, the organizational needs and users’ tasks were taken into account.

All in all based on the experiences received from the pilots, use of NFC has both advantages and disadvantages and, therefore, its pros and cons have to be weighed up for each case in question. From pilot users’ point of view, lessons learnt for the future solution design were the following: 1.

Place the tags carefully. The tags should -based on the received experience- be in a visible location to avoid additional memory payload for the users and to help temporary workforce to use the system. For avoiding vandalism, the tags should be attached in such a way that they blend in with the environment or are protected. Tags can be protected with a plastic casing or attach them on hidden,

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3.

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obvious and fixed locations (i.e. behind doorplate). Figure 2 demonstrates placing of tags on pilots 2, 4 and 6. Keep the amount of textual input information as minimum as possible for the task. In some of the pilots the data input was done by using the keyboard of the mobile device, but the interviews revealed that even if entering numerical information into the system was regarded acceptable, the amount of textual input entered with mobile phone was very low. Because of the small keyboard, the textual input of data was made in the pilots rather with PC keyboard than with phone’s keyboard. To facilitate entering textual input, for example PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) devices could be used in NFC solutions. In pilot 2, the users only typed at maximum the first letters of the route locations to indicate the place information; rest of the route information was entered afterwards by using a web interface. NFC helps the goal 2 for example by reducing the need to type login information. Enable interaction with other applications and systems. In pilots, as a desirable feature it was seen possibility of the system to interact with other applications and systems. As NFC enables easy user and place identification, the services becomes easy to use for example by the aid of the place tag.

Fig. 2. Tag locations on pilots 2, 4 and 6: pilot 2 on bottom left, pilot 4 on the right and pilot 6 on upper left

4.3 Challenges of NFC Use to the Organization When NFC enables a user to enter his data electronically into the organisation’s information system, the rest of the system must catch up. Integration of various systems is challenging especially when the interaction occurs between several organizations [27]. Systems typically are characterized by different architectural solutions and implemented in various programming languages. These differences may cause problems when integrating systems in an inter-organizational context (as an example of

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potential problems see [28]). Before implementation of the pilots it seemed that the bottleneck of delivering information was the field worker and his slow reporting. Implementation of all the pilots showed that the rest of the organisation was not ready for the real time data input that NFC powered employees generate. The old processes, where paper reports from the field were circulated from desk to desk to get formal approvals, become new bottlenecks for information, if the whole process chain is not changed. The lesson learnt from the pilots was that once information is electronic, it should stay electronic to avoid possible bottlenecks later in the system. As the information collected from the field became electronic in the pilots, a need emerged to spread it across different parties’ information systems. For example when a cleaner reported that he had cleaned a conference room, the information was expected also to be passed to the room reservation-system. The possibilities for workflow-optimisation and worker coordination were seen as an important feature and as an incentive for NFC based solutions. Some users considered NFC based real time systems as a surveillance and distrust of their work ethic although some others regarded the system to be helpful and provide evidence of the hard work they had done. Feeling of distrust was bigger when the work was done within a same organisation; in inter-organizational activities tracking of activities is regarded as normal part of work. User acceptance of these kinds of systems needs to be taken into account when planning them. An even more extended form of control are under-the-skin RFID chips of which commercial solutions already exist [29, 30] . Table 4 summarizes the organizational problems NFC could solve and their realization in the pilot cases. Table 4. Potential problems that NFC could solve and their realization in the pilot cases Problems NFC could solve

Advantage of NFC use

Problem solved in the pilots

Limited access to information and data collection applications in the field

Enable access to information and applications in the field

Partly

Manual use of pen and paper in the field causes a lot of paperwork when the worker is back at the office

Real time updating of data

Yes

Manual re-entry of the collected data enhances the risk of making errors

Removal of human errors

Yes

Outdated client information/service history

Enabling access to real-time information

Not

Outdated site/product/ service instructions

Enabling access to real-time instructions

Partly

User has to keep the information in his head until he updates the files

Reducing users’ memory payload

Yes

Verifying if someone has been in a certain location and when

Ability to verify someone’s presence in certain location

Yes

implemented

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As can be seen from Table 4, NFC could solve most of the problems that appeared before implementing the pilots.

5 Conclusions and Further Research The aim of this paper was to identify how NFC technology could be used to improve mobile solution workflows and usability and summarize what advantages/disadvantages NFC was seen to have. In general NFC is seen to have lot of potential especially in supply chain management, security, and tracking of objects and personnel. This paper contributed in the area by presenting six pilot cases where NFC could be used. Based on the results of this study it was found out that NFC can improve mobile workflows by solving various problems related to mobile/remote work. In the pilot cases use of NFC solved wholly/partially the following problems: 1) enabling access to real-time information, applications and instructions in the field, 2) real time updating of data, 3) removal of human errors, 4) reducing users’ memory payload, and 5) creating ability to verify someone’s presence in certain location. As a disadvantage of NFC use was seen the possible shifting of the bottleneck forward in the organization, limitations caused by the small user interface of mobile devices and investments into the devices and system integration. Considering mobile solution usability, this paper concluded that NFC based solutions are easy to use, but the small and limited keyboard of mobile devices poses challenges to the design of these solutions. From usability and user experience point of view in NFC based solutions emphasis should be placed in the following aspects: placing the tags, easiness of the application use and amount of textual input of data. The contexts and requirements for user friendliness were taken into account in the pilots, but they did not always impact the user experience. This paper concluded that only a comprehensive solution achieves the full potential of NFC from users’ point of view; realizing small parts does not help. If the rest of the system does not catch up, the users can regard using NFC only as an additional burden, which for example increases the handling times of forms and amount of errors later in the process. Based on the experiences received from the pilots, NFC use poses the following challenges to the organization: 1) the rest of the information system must catch up to avoid possible bottlenecks later in the system, 2) need to spread the information across different parties’ information system, and 3) feeling of some users that real-time systems are used for their surveillance because of distrust towards their work. Experiences received from all the pilots of this study have in general been positive and all pilots will either be implemented in future or there is going on discussions about their future implementation. Considering the ‘big picture’ of RFID/NFC use, it has to be remembered that some users will consider NFC based real time systems as a surveillance and distrust of their work ethic. An even more extended form of control is under-the-skin RFID chips of which commercial solutions already exist. Wide use of under-the-skin chips enables ‘Big Brother’ kind of real-time surveillance of individuals and their actions.

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In further research it could be evaluated if the advantages/disadvantages of NFC are realized also in other application areas and/or when the user amount is bigger than the pilots presented in this study. In future research it would also be interesting to compare user experiences received from various NFC solutions and draw general guidelines for designing user-friendly NFC solutions. As the pilots presented in this study has been implemented, it would also be interesting to collect user experiences from longer time period to find out how the implementation has improved the total workflow of the company and its usability. Integration of the pilots with rest of the system also leaves space for further research considering user-friendliness of the whole use process from beginning until end. The challenges posed by NFC to organizations and solving them leave also space for further research. The economic benefits of NFC use vs. their expenses provide also an interesting further research topic.

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