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Enhanced ergonomics approaches for product design: a user experience ecosystem perspective and case studies a

Wei Xu a

Human Factors Engineering Department, Intel Corporation, Folsom, CA95630, USA Published online: 10 Jan 2014.

To cite this article: Wei Xu (2014) Enhanced ergonomics approaches for product design: a user experience ecosystem perspective and case studies, Ergonomics, 57:1, 34-51, DOI: 10.1080/00140139.2013.861023 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00140139.2013.861023

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Ergonomics, 2014 Vol. 57, No. 1, 34–51, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00140139.2013.861023

Enhanced ergonomics approaches for product design: a user experience ecosystem perspective and case studies Wei Xu* Human Factors Engineering Department, Intel Corporation, Folsom, CA 95630, USA

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(Received 2 December 2012; accepted 9 September 2013) This paper first discusses the major inefficiencies faced in current human factors and ergonomics (HFE) approaches: (1) delivering an optimal end-to-end user experience (UX) to users of a solution across its solution lifecycle stages; (2) strategically influencing the product business and technology capability roadmaps from a UX perspective and (3) proactively identifying new market opportunities and influencing the platform architecture capabilities on which the UX of end products relies. In response to these challenges, three case studies are presented to demonstrate how enhanced ergonomics design approaches have effectively addressed the challenges faced in current HFE approaches. Then, the enhanced ergonomics design approaches are conceptualised by a user-experience ecosystem (UXE) framework, from a UX ecosystem perspective. Finally, evidence supporting the UXE, the advantage and the formalised process for executing UXE and methodological considerations are discussed. Practitioner Summary: This paper presents enhanced ergonomics approaches to product design via three case studies to effectively address current HFE challenges by leveraging a systematic end-to-end UX approach, UX roadmaps and emerging UX associated with prioritised user needs and usages. Thus, HFE professionals can be more strategic, creative and influential. Keywords: human factors and ergonomics; ergonomic product; user-experience ecosystem; end-to-end user experience; user experience roadmap; emerging user experience

1. Introduction It has been identified in the human factors and ergonomics (HFE) community that HFE should make great contributions to product design, as HFE is a unique discipline that focuses on the nature of human– artefact interactions (Dekker and Nyce 2004; Dul et al. 2012; Karwowski 2005). To make contributions to product design, HFE professionals, such as ergonomics specialists and human factors engineers, have implemented a human-centred approach to delivering ergonomic products (Dul et al. 2012; IEA 2003; Karwowski 2001, 2005). HFE practices and approaches have largely promoted the emergence and growth of the human– computer interactions (HCIs) field as computing technology advances. In HCI, a user-centred design approach, echoing the human-centred approach, has been deployed to emphasise on end users in computing product development by understanding and realising user needs in products through interaction design on the product user interface (UI) to achieve optimal user experience (UX) (Cooper 2004; Mayhew 1999; Nielsen 1993). Products with optimal UX built in are essentially what HFE professionals have been pursuing; that is, ergonomic products that are shaped around the capacities and aspirations of humans such that performance and well-being are optimised (Dul et al. 2012). Much progress has been made towards increasing HFE influences on product design by HFE professionals in addition to HCI colleagues, such as usability specialists and interaction designers (Dekker and Nyce 2004; Harris and Stanton 2010; Nielsen 2005; Stanton and Baber 2006). For instance, HFE professionals are now involved in product development earlier than they used to be; they gather user needs, define personas and drive interaction design, instead of merely running ad hoc UI usability testing (Cooper 2004). However, current HFE practices contributing to product design aim primarily at interaction design and the usability of product UI (Cooper 2004; Hackos and Redish 1998; Mayhew 1999; Nielsen 1993; Shneiderman 2010; Soares and Rebelo 2012; Xu 2007), current HFE approaches still face major challenges, thus limiting the potential for greater contributions to product design as follows. 1.1 Inefficiency in delivering optimal end-to-end user experience to end user across solution lifecycle stages It is worthwhile to revisit the definition of UX, as achieving optimal UX was identified in the very beginning when HCI was boomed by HFE. Norman (1999) coined the classic definition for UX when promoting the user-centred design approach: ‘all aspects of the user’s interaction with the product: how it is perceived, learned, and used’. The latest definition of ISO

*Email: [email protected] q 2014 Taylor & Francis

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(2010) considers UX as ‘a person’s perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service’. Although the ISO standards do not go further in clarifying the relationship between UX and usability, the ISO definition of UX includes all user emotions, beliefs, preferences, perceptions, physical and psychological responses, behaviours and accomplishments that occur before, during and after use. The ISO definition of UX is essentially what an ergonomic product means to the HFE community (Karwowski 2005). In addition to the ISO standard, there exist several other definitions for UX (Allaboutux.org 2012; Garret 2010; Law et al. 2009). For instance, Revang (2007) defines a UX wheel that considers UX as a series of phases: findability, accessibility, desirability, usability, credibility and usefulness, and there are 30 factors contributing to UX. Clearly, those definitions suggest that when designing products, one emphasises on UX that is beyond the product UI and its usability, which unfortunately has been the focus of current HFE practices in many cases. Recent advances in computing technology (e.g. mobile, ubiquitous, social computing) have moved HCIs into practically all areas of human activity. This has led to a shift away from usability to a much richer scope of UX, where user feelings, motivations and values are given as much, if not more, attention than traditional usability metrics, such as efficiency, effectiveness and subjective satisfaction (Green and Jordan 2002; Jordan 2000; Nielson 1993; Shneiderman 2010). As illustrated in Figure 1, an end user interacts with all aspects of a solution (i.e. a product or service) across its lifecycle stages, such as initial marketing, select/order/install, use, content service, support, upgrade and eventually end-of-life activities. User interactions with all aspects of a solution are realised through multiple touch points with anything related to the solution, such as marketing materials, functionality, workflow, UI, online help, user support, service and the like. The user gains his/her UX through a continuous involvement with these multiple touch points: how it is perceived (e.g. marketing), learned (e.g. service content, training), used (e.g. workflow, UI, functionality), supported (e.g. customer support, online help) and so on. All of these aspects constitute the end-to-end UX (E2E UX) across the solution lifecycle stages; any breakdown of these touch points would negatively impact the delivery of an optimal E2E UX to the end user. In the HFE community, there have been increased efforts that intend to address the various components of UX in a broad scope. However, these previous works either did not frame UX in the context of a solution lifecycle from an E2E UX perspective (e.g. Mack and Sharples 2009; ISO 2010; Go¨bel and Zschernack 2012; Norman 1999; Revang 2007; Soares and Rebelo 2012) or still concentrated on the product UI when considering interaction design (Cooper 2004). As a result, user interactions with all aspects across the solution lifecycle stages and the dependencies for achieving an optimal E2E UX have not been explored thoroughly. Conversely, although previous studies attempted to address the E2E UX issues across a solution lifecycle (Finstad et al. 2009; Swards 2006; Vredenburg, Isensee, and Righi 2001), no formalised approach or process has been proposed. Overall, there is no mature and systematic approach available to effectively guide current HFE practices to broadly address E2E UX. Thus, there is a definite need for the HFE community to further explore effective methods and approaches to address E2E UX beyond merely defining a rich UX or addressing the interaction design of a product UI. The much richer E2E UX that a user receives today is far beyond that which the user received from a relatively simple solution many years ago. UI

Figure 1.

E2E UX concept.

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and its usability comprise only one of the key interaction touch points from an E2E UX perspective. Without a systematic approach, one can only address a single aspect of E2E UX, making it impossible to deliver an optimal E2E UX to end users. 1.2 Inefficiency in influencing product capability roadmaps from UX perspective A product roadmap is a common method used to match short-term and long-term goals with specific technology or business capabilities (Loch and Kavadias 2007). These roadmaps largely determine UX of a final product delivered to users. Currently, the development of product roadmaps is mainly driven by technology and business people (e.g. architects, product managers). In most cases, HFE professionals typically do not get involved and do not have much influence on the development of these roadmaps. When developing roadmaps, the technology and business people previously based innovations on customer requirements and technological trends, but UX (e.g. user gaps, needs) was not fully considered. In many cases, customer requirements directly come from business stakeholders, who may not be the actual end users of the proposed product. This means that the customer requirements may not truly represent the end users’ requirements. Thus, there is a gap in the process from the UX perspective. In current HFE practices, HFE professionals collect UX data, such as end user needs and usage models through various activities. The challenge for HFE professionals, in most cases, falls into the following three scenarios (Wooding and Xu 2011): (1) they do not proactively conduct user research to fully understand user needs and usages from a long-term perspective, due to their narrowed engagement scopes or lack of a long-term strategic view; (2) they do not leverage the collected data to generate the predictive UX data (e.g. UX roadmaps) due to lack of good methods in developing UX roadmaps or (3) they generate UX roadmaps, but they either do not have a chance to influence product roadmaps or fail to effectively influence product roadmaps in the early product planning stage, due to other reasons, such as the typical late engagement in the product lifecycle, lack of influence skillset and lack of a mature organisational culture for promoting UX. Without considering UX, a delivered product may provide great technological capabilities that match a business strategy, but it may not be the right product or capabilities that users want at the time it is released to the market, and is thus not useful. As a result, the product may fail to achieve business goals (e.g. market share). Thus, if HFE professionals do not predictively consider UX over time, they may lose the opportunity to influence product roadmaps. A gap may have existed from the beginning, when technology and business people defined the strategic direction for current (at the time) and future products as documented in their roadmaps. Lack of such an influence on these roadmaps would limit HFE professionals’ work to a passive and tactical mode only within the predefined scope of a current project. Such a work mode would not only limit HFE professionals’ ability to deliver the optimal UX in current release (because user needs may not be sequentially optimised), but also limit HFE professionals’ strategic influence on product directions. In either case, any effort on interaction design as promoted within a narrowed project scope may not deliver its optimal UX to end users as desired (e.g. Cooper 2004). A few formalised approaches have emerged out of the popularity UX roadmaps that have received (e.g. HP 2011; Netsoft 2012). However, there is little information of formal approaches on how to develop UX roadmaps and how these roadmaps should be represented in the HFE academic world. When presenting a UX roadmap, professionals in the IT industry have either developed it in a technology-centric or a narrow project-centric manner (HP 2011; Netsoft 2012). 1.3 Inefficiency in identifying market opportunities of new products and platform architecture capabilities from UX perspective Current practices in identifying market opportunities for new products are primarily driven by market methods. These methods are limited in terms of understanding actual UX and user behaviours in end users’ real-life settings because the data collections are based mainly on user opinions or preferences gathered through various methods, such as surveys and focus groups sessions. Furthermore, these methods do not fully explore users’ behaviours and usages in their real-life settings. In many cases, what users report may not truly represent their needs. However, in today’s HFE practices, there are many methods available that help HFE professionals identify actual user needs and usage models in a social-tech environment through direct user behavioural studies, such as ethnography and contextual inquiry. These identified user needs and usage models may lead to new market opportunities in the very early stages, that is even before a product development lifecycle starts. However, although HFE professionals have tried to get involved in the early stages of a product’s lifecycle and have made great progress, they are not proactive enough to explore emerging UX associated with new user needs and usages. Therefore, their contributions to the process of identifying new market opportunities are limited, where UX may not be fully considered. The challenge continues on. Once a new marketing opportunity is defined, the definitions of platform architecture capabilities begin as part of the product’s requirements in the early stage of the product development lifecycle. Platform

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capabilities determine the foundation for technical capabilities (both hardware and software) of a product, which determines the HCI functionality and the UI technology that can be developed in order to design a usable product. For instance, a computing platform architecture consists of a CPU (central processing unit), chipset, and system hardware and software, all of which determine the functionality and UI technology for an end product (e.g. laptop, tablet) that will be built based on those platform architecture capabilities. However, in today’s practices, a technology-centric approach is typically used in defining platform architecture capabilities in the computer chip manufacturing industry (Bell 2001; Bell et al. 2003; Dourish and Bell 2011). In the case of defining the platform architecture for CPUs, people previously concentrated on system performance (e.g. CPU computing speed) and neglected user needs in foreseeing UI capabilities to be used in the end products built on the CPU, such as wireless, touch-screen UI, 3D graphics, instant boost and multimedia. Without these types of capabilities built into the platform architecture which are delivered by a platform vendor (e.g. a CPU vendor), the developers of the end interactive products that rely on these platform capabilities would limit user needs-sensitive UI capabilities in their end products. In addition, HFE professionals of these products may participate early enough in the development of their own products by following valid HFE approaches or methods, such as goal-directed interaction design (Cooper 2004). Lack of these types of fundamental platform architecture capabilities will restrict HFE professionals from developing rich UX for end users through their UIs. Therefore, if there is a lack of UX considerations in defining platform architecture capabilities in the very beginning, delivered UX of an end product will be greatly impacted. In summary, HFE professionals are not sufficiently proactive in defining new market opportunities of products and the platform architecture capabilities from a UX perspective. Without HFE professionals’ involvement from the very beginning, a UX gap may have already existed when individuals defined market opportunities for new products and the platform architecture capabilities on which the UX of end products depends. In this case, HFE professionals who work on end products will not be able to deliver optimal UX to meet end user needs, regardless of how much effort they put into the practices (such as interaction design and usability testing of a product UI) because the end product may have been wrongly defined without a UX validation in the first place, and/or the platform architecture may not provide necessary capabilities that support necessary HCIs on the UI. 2. Enhanced ergonomics approaches and case studies To address the three major challenges previously discussed, current HFE approaches were enhanced and implemented in the following three case studies. Although the enhanced approaches were executed differently in method, each of them has enhanced the current HFE approaches and addressed the challenges accordingly. Each of the three case studies has three parts. First, problem statements are described; second, details of the approach are discussed to illustrate how the problems have been addressed through the enhanced approach; and finally, the impacts of the enhanced approach are summarised. 2.1 2.1.1

Case study 1: effectively delivering optimal E2E UX through addressing multiple interaction touch points Problem statements

A few years ago, Intel planned to upgrade a large enterprise back-end database system. As a result, upgrades of some webbased, front-end applications were also required. The external vendor of the back-end system offered a web-based front-end enterprise hiring management application (HMA1) at no cost. HMA1 includes applications that allow hiring managers to manage the whole hiring process (e.g. create and post job requisitions, set up interviews, make decision, write offer) and human resources staff to support the hiring process. To save on costs during the economic downturn, as part of the system upgrade programme, the vendor’s application suite was chosen to replace the existing hiring management application suite. After HMA1 was released, significant post-release issues were reported. Overall, end users perceived the upgrade as a step back, from a UX perspective. Two root causes were identified: (1) vendor-side issues: HMA1 was the first-generation, web-based, front-end solution built by the vendor; the vendor had not done sufficient UX work on it, creating many UX issues; (2) enterprise-side issues: as influenced by the overall cost policy adopted for the back-end system upgrade, a vanilla (i.e. no customisation) approach was executed for front-end applications and UX work was not considered a high priority in the process. 2.1.2

Approach

2.1.2.1 E2E UX data collection methods and analyses. To address the significant post-release issues, phase 2 work (HMA2) commenced. The HFE group was requested to provide support for HMA2. The assigned HFE specialist conducted

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Table 1.

Distribution of identified HMA1 post-release issues across E2E UX.

Issue category

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Tool usability and UI design System and data integration Business process Marketing/communication/change management Functional/data errors Tool functionality User support System performance Total

Distribution (%) 8 7 16 15 12 29 8 5 100

an E2E UX gap analysis based on HMA1 post-release issues across all the identified issues through methods such as a user survey, service call logs and interviews. The analysis found that the issues users encountered were distributed across many of the touch points associated with E2E UX (see Table 1), such as business process, UI usability, functionality and user support and so on. 2.1.2.2 An E2E UX approach. The HFE specialist proposed an E2E UX approach for HMA2 based on the E2E UX analysis (Finstad et al. 2009), which aimed to address all these touch points of E2E UX across the solution lifecycle stages. Three major measures were taken to facilitate the execution of the E2E UX approach. . Creating an E2E UX team: The HFE specialist led the E2E UX team; members included representatives from various functional areas (quality assurance, business process, training, user support and others), each corresponded to one of the E2E UX touch points. The HFE specialist worked as a facilitator of the team. Each of the team members owned the planning and execution of the corresponding E2E UX touch point in his or her functional area. . Including the HFE specialist as a member of the programme management office: This is different from conventional HFE approaches, where HFE professionals are typically embedded somewhere within a programme as a project member. Becoming a member of the management team helped promote the E2E UX approach and increased the visibility of the E2E UX work to management. . Defining an E2E UX scorecard and a tracking process: The E2E UX scorecard not only defined success criteria for usability in a typical HFE process (e.g. task completion time, success rate), but also covered success criteria for other E2E UX touch points (see Table 2). Besides, various check points were defined across all of these E2E UX touch points in alignment with the programme lifecycle. Such a tracking process enabled the programme management to closely monitor the progress of E2E UX activities and take necessary actions, if needed. This process also increased the overall awareness of an E2E UX culture within the programme. 2.1.2.3 Major E2E UX activities. Specifically, various E2E UX activities were executed during the process across major E2E UX touch points as highlighted below: (1) Incorporating the E2E UX approach into the product purchase decision-making process: During the selection of a new product vendor for HMA2, E2E UX was incorporated into a vendor assessment scorecard and counted as 20% of the total score amongst the five components (i.e. business requirement fit, solution compliance, vendor viability, cost and E2E UX). An E2E UX assessment template was defined to score items across these various E2E UX touch points. A new vendor was chosen amongst three candidate vendors based on the total score. This ensured that E2E UX was fully considered in the vendor selection process. (2) Leveraging the E2E UX data to optimise business processes: A new vendor was chosen, partially due to its flexible configuration capability of business processes in its product. In order to achieve the right balance between UX and the corporate business processes, four usability tests were separately conducted to assess four configured business processes in terms of the average scores of major E2E UX aspects, such as ease of use, business capability, functionality and overall satisfaction (see Figure 2). As shown in Figure 2, an optimal business process with configuration 3 was chosen in terms of the criteria, but without violating necessary business processes, such as legal requirements. (3) Improving tool UI design and usability: Twenty hiring managers participated in a usability test to assess the UI usability. The results identified two major tasks with low success rates of about 20% (see Figure 3): (1) making a

Satisfaction score Page response time % of meeting business requirements and effectiveness % of meeting business and user needs # of defects

% of target users trained with % satisfied Effectiveness of user escalation support model

App usability System performance Business process

User training

Communication and % of target users communicated end user awareness with . % satisfied

User support

Functional defects

Tool functionality

Task completion time

App usability

Metrics

N/A

N/A

Gaps identified

.45 min (create job requisition) ,3 (1– 7 scale) N/A Gaps identified

HMA1 baseline indicator

User support team Many issues escalated to levels 2 and 3 support Marketing and N/A communication team

Quality assurance team Training team

Technical team

HFE specialist Technical team Business team

HFE specialist

Owner

Illustration of E2E UX scorecard template (simplified and partial).

E2E UX touch points

Table 2.

Final E2E UX test . 90% of target users communicated Pre-release surveys with . 80% satisfied

No showstopper & high issues, 90% medium issues closed . 75% of target users trained with 80% satisfied 95% of issues can be solved at level 1 support

Pre-release surveys

Final E2E UX test Performance test Business stakeholder validation, usability tests Vendor product E2E UX assessment, usability test Functional test

. 5 (1 – 7 scale) 8 s on average (complex loads) All major needs met All major needs met

Final E2E UX test

Validation methods

, 20 min

HMA2 success criteria

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Ease of use Business capability

6

Functions needed 5

Overall satisfaction

4 3 2 1 Configuration 1 Configuration 2 Configuration 3 Configuration 4

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Figure 2. Comparison of subjective ratings from 64 end users (1– 7 scale with 1 as the most negative score and 7 as the most positive score) among four business process configurations.

80

60

40

20

0 My Requisition vs. My Candidate

Figure 3.

Apply/Done trap

Revert confusion

Withdraw/Reject

Average success rates of 20 hiring managers when performing four major tasks.

selection between the ‘My Requisition’ versus ‘My Candidate’ link that would lead to an incorrect work flow and (2) making a selection between the ‘Apply’ versus ‘Done’ status selection dialogue screen that would result in an additional and incorrect status being applied. The vendor was convinced by the usability data to directly fix the issues. This saved Intel substantial costs by avoiding customisation-coding work. The other two issues (i.e. ‘Revert’ and ‘Withdraw/Reject’) were addressed through a change of configuration capability. (4) Incorporating user-centric approach to deliver effective training and user support: Driven by the E2E UX approach, the training and user support teams shifted their focus from a conventional ‘quantity’ approach (e.g. percentage of users trained) to a ‘quality’ approach (e.g. effectiveness of the training delivered). The teams conducted training and support-need analysis across the target user segments and implemented effective training delivery methods based on the needs and priorities identified. Each training delivery (e.g. web-based training, inclassroom training) was tested through E2E UX validation activities (e.g. surveys, usability tests) prior to release, facilitated by the E2E UX scorecard and the tracking process. Similarly, user support and escalation models were also optimised. (5) Validating user awareness and readiness prior to release: Different from most current HFE approaches, a more proactive approach was taken to raise end user’s awareness and readiness for the new HMA2 release. Based on the E2E UX scorecard, validation work of user awareness and readiness occurred prior to the release. Communication materials were delivered (e.g. email) according to the E2E UX tracking process. Two surveys were conducted to check the progress of user awareness and readiness, and necessary actions were taken based on feedback. (6) Conducting an integrated E2E UX test to validate all E2E UX touch points: Unlike typical usability testing, which mainly focuses on UI design and is not typically conducted in an environment that emulates a realistic working environment, an integrated E2E UX test was conducted with end users in two different ways: (1) a simulated working environment was set up which included various people who represented different roles in the hiring process, such as staffing consultant, call centre agents (with support scripts provided), various user help materials and a back-end system support team; (2) the end users (e.g. job applicants and hiring manager, staffing specialist) tested all major E2E UX touch points by following a simulated end-to-end hiring process from ‘search for job

Ergonomics Table 3.

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Comparison in key UX indicators between HMA1 and HMA2 (partial).

Key E2E UX indicators Usability score (1– 7 rating scale) User satisfaction (survey) Task completion time (create a job requisition) User call support ratio User-support call volume

HMA1 (post-release)

HMA2 (post-release)

,3 43% .45 min 54% 1.23 call/1000 transactions

,5 78% , 20 min 14% 0.81/1000 transactions

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openings’ (by applicants) to the end of ‘accept offer’ (by applicants) based on the test scripts and materials. There were several medium and many low-rated issues identified from test, all medium-rated issues and most low-rated issues were fixed. The E2E UX test enabled the program to fix possible E2E UX issues across all the E2E UX touch points with real scenarios prior to release.

2.1.3 Impacts The HMA2 solution was released with a great success (see Table 3). As shown in Table 3, the results indicate the significant improvements of HMA2 over HMA1 across some key E2E UX indicators.

2.2

Case study 2: developing a UX roadmap to influence strategic direction of product development

2.2.1

Problem statements

An internal business portal is a platform that provides corporate users with a collaborative workspace by aggregating a variety of web content, applications and reports. It allows users to access the content in a one-stop-shop approach. The UX problems in this case study pertain to a corporate business portal for internal financial users. The portal was released in the early 2000s with a personalisation capability. The capability allowed users to turn some content on and off or manoeuvre it, similar to what iGoogle and Yahoo! provide today. However, users felt frustrated when using the personalisation; they were not familiar with this type of capability, so it was eventually removed. This example shows that if a product capability is ahead of UX and user readiness, it will not be accepted by users and eventually will not deliver business value. The Intel portal program had defined a product roadmap with various technology capabilities to be rolled out over the next several years to enhance internal business portals. On one hand, business and technology people are looking for predictable UX data to help guide their roadmaps to match the optimal UX sequence based on the lessons learned; on the other hand, the program had only the UX data that defined the current UX states (e.g. user needs), which were typically delivered by a project HFE specialist in terms of short-term user needs. There was no predictable UX data that could help the program optimise the proposed product roadmaps.

2.2.2

Approach

2.2.2.1 UX data collection methods. To address the problems, the Intel HFE team launched a project (Wooding and Xu 2011). The methods used in collecting UX data are summarised in Table 4. The participants represented portal users with an average of 5.5 years of working experience at Intel ranging from 2 months to 35 years, combined with 30 work titles within 13 business units, across 63 sites in 24 countries at Intel. The data collection generated totally 75,258 words of data, 56 interview transcripts and 26 information process maps for analyses. Table 4.

Summary of UX data collection methods.

Methods Industry best practice review Information process mapping User interviews User surveys

Data sources Industry reports, external benchmarking data, vendor visits 1:1 sessions conducted with 32 representative portal users who mapped out the typical information processes they used to support their daily jobs 1:1 sessions and observations conducted with 24 portal users on their work environment, daily work patterns and portal usages 904 valid surveys received with a 29% response rate on user needs and usage, including ranking/ ordering questions in the survey

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2.2.2.2 Data analyses. A commercial qualitative data analysis software, which was designed for qualitative research with large volumes of rich text-based data, was used for the data analyses. The procedure, which created the building blocks for the UX roadmap, was as follows: (1) entering and coding all collected data into the software; (2) classifying and sorting the data into larger UX patterns in terms of user needs and usages, and looking for themes within themes (e.g. ‘I access targeted job content’, ‘I choose/personalise what I see’) and (3) creating the building blocks of the UX roadmap (see Table 5, Figures 4 and 5).

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2.2.2.3 Development of the UX roadmap. The building blocks were used to build the UX roadmap by following the format as shown in Figure 6. Figure 6 only partially illustrates the UX roadmap. . The vertical axis defines various UX elements in order, from basic to advanced, as illustrated by the level 2 of the hierarchy (Figure 4). Basic user needs as defined by basic UX elements must be satisfied prior to advanced UX needs. For instance, ‘I make decisions with the portal’ is the most advanced user need, but basic user needs must be satisfied first, such as ‘I access targeted job content’. . The horizontal axis defines a sequence of sublevel UX goals over time for each of the UX elements, as illustrated by the level 3 of the hierarchy (Figure 4). For instance, to achieve the ‘I access targeted job content’ UX element, users want to access the ‘push’ content per their job role first (i.e. the targeted content is displayed by default based on job roles), then choose and personalise what they can access. Eventually, the long-term goal, as defined by ‘I create or share content with others’, will be achieved, providing the opportunity for employees to collaborate with others. . Figure 6 presents only a high-level view of the UX roadmap. A detailed view was also developed in terms of nearterm measurable UX goals. For instance, for the near-term UX goal of ‘I access “push” content per my role’, at the detailed level, UX goals were broken down into: (1) ‘I can access major job content by default with fewer than three clicks’ for a project phase 1 deliverable and (2) ‘I can access major job content by default with just one click’ for a project phase 2 deliverable. Here, the measurable UX goals can be validated by typical project HFE activities. . Notice that no actual technology capabilities or product labels are defined in the UX roadmap shown in Figure 6. A UX roadmap presents only user needs in a technical agnostic way. Actual product capabilities should be documented in a product roadmap by mapping the UX roadmap and technology capability accordingly. 2.2.3 Impacts The proposed UX roadmap was presented to the portal program with positive feedback received. The program accordingly made adjustments to the existing product roadmap by mapping both predictable UX data and product capabilities accordingly. As a result, the release sequence of product capabilities was optimised in a revised product capability roadmap based on the optimal UX sequence, as defined in the UX roadmap. For instance, the implementation sequence of technology capabilities (e.g. corporate social media technology, enterprise workspaces technology) should be carefully defined to best satisfy user needs (i.e. ‘I collaborate with others’) over time (Chouhan, Xu, and Manohar 2011). Table 5.

Building blocks of UX roadmap.

Building block

Purpose

Examples

UX vision

Define the long-term strategic goal of the UX roadmap

UX guiding principles

Guide the development of a UX roadmap and define the scope and boundaries of the UX roadmap

Hierarchy of user needs and usages

Define the means-end relation across levels of user needs and usages; that is the items at a lower level help achieve the goal defined at the upper level Define the sequence of user needs and usages to be implemented over time based on collected UX data (e.g. ranking data)

A portal not only provides news and information, but also provides transactional data to support their jobs and make decision in one easy place The portal should enable more collaboration with integrated and targeted content based on job roles The content should be more relevant and personalisable See Figure 5

Prioritisation and dependency of user needs and usages

See Figure 6

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Figure 4.

Illustration of user needs/usages hierarchy (partial).

Figure 5.

Example of prioritised user needs for the ‘I choose/personalize what I see’ user need.

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Figure 6. UX roadmap example for business portal. Only high-level information is presented for subset area of portal business domain.

As driven by the revised product roadmap, some basic corporate social media capabilities have been implemented first, including ‘Unified Employee Profiles’, ‘Expert Finder’ and so on. As a result, the user need of ‘I find the expert I need’ is realised, and then the program has a plan for the next user need of a shared workspace (i.e. ‘I collaborate with others in real time in a shared workspace’).

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2.3 Case study 3: identifying emerging UX to influence definitions of new market opportunities and platform architecture capabilities 2.3.1 Problem statements Traditional TV technology has failed to progress in the way other technologies have, leaving the living room with a comfortable void, since Internet experience, social networking and contextual information are basically offered by other devices, such as smartphones, netbooks and laptops. Industry has been looking for new technological solutions and marketing opportunities for traditional TV technology. More specifically, the integration of the Internet experience into traditional TV usage seems to be the most promising opportunity (Loi 2011). However, many UX-related questions must be addressed before such a new opportunity is identified to support a new emerging UX (Loi 2011). What kind of UX do consumers expect from Internet access via a TV? How can one integrate the Internet experience while preserving the best of a TV medium, which continues to inspire 1.3 billion households around the world? Moreover, what type of interaction models do consumers expect, and what are its implications to the TV screen design and user control UI design? What content do people want to watch and store? From a marketing perspective, what type of new market opportunity will this merge bring in if the new UX can be justified? From product development perspective, what type of processing power and platform architecture capabilities is required to support the new TV experience and UI technology, based on desired interactions?

2.3.2

Approach

2.3.2.1 UX data collection methods. In the past several years, Intel HFE professionals, including anthologists and ethnographers, have conducted a number of exploratory studies. They have visited hundreds of people in their homes across many countries (Bell 2007; Loi 2009, 2011). Due to the large scale of the studies, the data collection methods are qualitatively summarised in Table 6. These studies were aimed at various aspects of people’s UX with computing technologies, including TV experience and the social lives of television users. Unlike traditional user research (e.g. user groups), these studies intended to understand how people in various cultural settings are touched by TV technology in their daily lives through direct observations and daily living with them. The HFE professionals also conducted field studies on the retail floor (e.g. Best Buy) in USA, where they gathered information from salespeople and consumers to understand what consumers needed from TV technology.

2.3.2.2 HFE activities. A series of HFE activities were conducted. Figure 7 highlights the key steps and activities to illustrate how these activities influenced the definitions of the new market opportunity and the platform architecture capabilities (Loi 2009, 2011). (1) Identifying the emerging UX: The series of studies revealed a variety of user needs and usages. For instance, they wanted to browse online while communicating and collaborating through social media while watching TV; they needed to access personal media on TV; they needed a way they could get whatever they wanted on demand. Furthermore, consumers wanted the UX quality of this new technology to be simple and interactive. After modelling and prioritising all the needs and usages through methods such as personas and use scenarios, a new UX pattern was clearly emerging: the intersection of television and the Internet. (2) Conceptualising the emerging UX: Based on the identified emerging UX, the HFE professionals partnered with interaction designers, architects and other technical people to conceptualise the new UX associated with various UX Table 6.

Summary of UX data collection methods (partial) (Bell 2007; Loi 2009, 2011).

Methods

Objectives

User segments and pools

Interviews, shadowing, cultural probes, photo diaries, surveys

Understand the daily lives of people and their relationships with technology

Interviews, observations

Understand the digital storage practices at home Understand what consumers needed from TV technology

100 þ households, 300 þ interviews (conducted aligned with other research agenda, e.g. relationships with technology such as PC, mobile phone, TV) 8 – 10 houses per country; 5 – 7 expert interviews per country Salespeople and consumers

Field study

Country/year India, China, USA and UK/2005 – 2006

Sweden, China and Indonesia/2007 US retail stores (e.g. Best Buy)/2008

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Figure 7. HFE approach for identifying the new emerging UX that influences the definition of a new product market opportunity and platform architecture capabilities (Loi 2009, 2011).

components through UI prototyping. These UX components include home media aggregation, TV widget (rich Internet apps), a 3D UI, the ability to share/send personal content with/to others or to access/receive contextual information and recommendations, gesture-based navigation and voice-based search. (3) Validating UX concepts: Numerous usability tests (and field studies) were conducted to iteratively assess and improve these proposed interaction models and UI concepts through quantitative and qualitative UX assessment metrics. During the iterative process and interactive discussions amongst the UX professionals, interaction designers, marketing people and technical personnel, these concepts also deeply influenced the thinking and development approach of all parties involved. 2.3.3 Impacts The newly identified emerging UX, along with the support data from both qualitative and quantitative UX data, helped open up new opportunities with internal stakeholders to conceptualise a new marketing opportunity and technological frameworks. As a result, a new TV experience and new market opportunity were defined: the smart TV. The smart TV allows users to do the following: access the Internet; search online, create personal content and enjoy broadcast programming from a single TV interface; access downloadable apps; connect to social networks while watching favourite programmes or movies; control the TV with a unique new remote control or voice commands and access an infinite number of entertainment possibilities. In addition, the UX work eventually influenced the definitions of platform architecture capabilities. As a result, an Intel CPU was designed specifically for powering the smart TV. The CPU offers platform capabilities to help design a usable smart TV, such as home-theatre quality, audio/video performance, signal processing, surround sound, 3D graphics and so on. The deliverables through these efforts met corporate strategic marketing needs and also provided a reference design for Intel when a vendor approached the company looking for hardware and platform solutions for new generation of TV technology. It opened a door for the smart TV, which is not just a product, but rather a completely new product category of TV (Lois 2011). In addition, the CPU capabilities as influenced by the emerging UX provided a foundation for the platform architecture capabilities that enabled TV vendors to develop usable products to meet consumer needs. 3.

A proposed user-experience ecosystem framework

Based on the three case studies, the enhanced HFE approaches as demonstrated above are conceptualised into a userexperience ecosystem (UXE) framework (see Figure 8). The UXE framework has its roots in the current HFE approaches but is beyond them. As illustrated in Figure 8, the UXE framework expands its boundaries far beyond current HFE approaches that primarily focus on UI design and its usability; it emphasises on the UX landscape for HFE professionals to contribute to product design from the context of a broad UX ecosystem, intending to address the challenges faced in current HFE practices. The UXE framework can be characterised as follows. 3.1

Systematically optimising E2E UX by addressing multiple touch points across solution lifecycles

The UXE framework approaches product design from the E2E UX standpoint, that is a continuous involvement of end users through various interaction touch points with all aspects of a solution across its lifecycle stages (see Figure 1), such as business process, functionality, usability, user support and so on, before, during and after interacting a solution. All of these aspects constitute a variety of artefacts that a user may interact within a broad UX landscape today, i.e. a UX ecosystem.

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Figure 8.

Illustration of the UXE conceptual framework from a UX ecosystem perspective.

The UXE framework calls for efforts in the HFE community to address E2E UX when making contributions to product design from such a broad UX ecosystem perspective, where HFE professionals should systematically address all these E2E UX touch points, instead of focusing on a single one. They should collectively address E2E UX through collaborating with owners of these multiple touch points in the UX ecosystem, so that they can jointly and effectively deliver an optimal E2E UX to end users. 3.2 Strategically addressing UX evolution through developing UX roadmaps associated with prioritised user needs and usages over time The UXE framework considers UX evolution from the UX ecosystem perspective. UX, like any ecosystem, may dynamically evolve in terms of user needs and usages. User needs and usages advance over time in a sequential order, which may be influenced by improvements in technology and people’s living conditions. One user’s needs or usage may have to be satisfied before subsequent user needs and usages while the products’ initial UXs mature; otherwise, optimal UXs will not be delivered. The UXE framework suggests that HFE professionals analyse and prioritise user needs and usages based on the UX data collected from end users. These sequential and predictable UX data may help HFE professionals build UX roadmaps in terms of the evolutionary nature of UX in a particular order, instead of narrowly approaching UX within the pre-defined scope from a near-term perspective. Thus, HFE professionals can more effectively and strategically influence product capability roadmaps from a long-term perspective, eventually delivering products and capabilities in a sequential order to match the optimal UX sequence so that an optimal UX can be delivered over time, as needed. 3.3

Proactively identifying emerging UX by identifying and prioritising new user needs and usages

The UXE framework also considers emerging UX associated with new user needs and usages in the UX ecosystem, which likes any ecosystem where new components always emerge over time. A variety of new user needs and usages may emerge daily. Although premature, some are emerging as patterns with valid usages that represent a new UX. Such a promising UX, which may have been previously unknown, creates a potential marketing opportunity for a new product that meets the emerging user need and usage. In today’s competitive market, whoever captures a new valid UX early enough and builds a product at the right time may win the market. As a result, the UXE framework suggests that HFE professionals proactively identify and prioritise new emerging UX in the early exploration stages of a product lifecycle by exploring and modelling new user needs and usages. This helps them define market opportunities for new products and the platform architecture capabilities on which end products rely for enhanced HCIs and UI design, which eventually results in the delivery of optimal UX.

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4. Discussions and recommendations 4.1 Evidence supporting the proposed UXE framework that addresses the challenges in current HFE approaches This paper presents three case studies, which support the proposed UXE framework. In Case study 1, the UX of the previously released tool (HMA1) was impacted by the issues identified across multiple touch points in the solution lifecycle (see Table 1). If the project program had just fixed these UI usability issues by following the currently typical HFE approach, they would have been able to only fix the issues accounting for 8% of the total post-release UX issues, and eventually the team still would have not been able to enhance E2E UX in the Phase 2 release (HMA2). Instead, Case study 1 demonstrates how the enhanced HFE approach was executed to address multiple E2E UX touch points, resulting in a significantly enhanced E2E UX in the new released product (HMA1) as evidenced by the phase 2 post-release UX data (see Table 3). Therefore, the UXE framework can address the challenge in current HFE approaches as discussed earlier, which has inefficiency in delivering optimal E2E UX to end users across solution lifecycle stages. Case study 2 shows that user needs and usages evolve over time; users have different priorities in terms of needs and usages over time, as evidenced by the UX data collected, such as the hierarchy of the identified user needs/usages and prioritisation of user needs/usages (see Figures 4– 6). To achieve optimal UX of a product as its capabilities release over time, one has to consider the evolutionary nature of UX from the UX ecosystem perspective as represented by the UXE framework, where UX (e.g. user needs and usages) evolves over time. Case study 2 also shows that a UX roadmap, which was built based on the evolutionary nature of UX over time, helped HFE professionals document and communicate predictable UX data in a more influential way. The UX roadmap helped technology and business people understand UX and validate their portal product roadmap to ensure that their roadmaps are well aligned to deliver an optimal UX over time. By doing this, the HFE professionals are able to overcome the inefficiency in current HFE approaches in influencing product capability roadmaps from a UX perspective. Finally, Case study 3 demonstrates that there are a variety of new user needs and usages that may emerge daily as their UXs mature. The HFE professionals were able to identify a valid emerging UX by modelling new user needs and usages with a much earlier involvement in the product development lifecycle; they eventually helped define the market opportunity for the new smart TV product and the platform architecture capabilities in much earlier stages than typical HFE practices. Obviously, the enhanced HFE approaches as conceptualised by the UXE framework outperforms typical practices deploying current HFE approaches. Based on the quantitative and qualitative case studies that are presented, it can be concluded that the UXE framework will enable HFE professionals to further explore UX in a broad UX ecosystem, which may promote new thinking and approaches. Although these case studies may not be sophisticated enough to fully demonstrate the whole picture of the proposed UXE framework from the UX ecosystem, they do show promise for a better approach amongst HFE professionals. The UXE framework approaches HFE’s contributions to design from a broad UX ecosystem perspective. It is rooted in the HFE discipline that applies the human-centred approach to work system design by considering broad relevant factors, such as physical, cognitive, social, organisational and environmental factors (Dul et al. 2012; IEA 2003; Karwowski 2001, 2005). The broad UX ecosystem perspective approached by the UXE framework echoes some efforts in the HFE community (Harris and Stanton 2010; Mack and Sharples 2009). For instance, the macro-ergonomic approach deployed by a series of studies aimed at addressing human factor considerations in aviation, a socio-technical ‘system of systems’, that encompasses pilots’ interactions with components, such as usability, training, design, maintenance, safety, procedures, communications, automation and so on. (Harris and Stanton 2010). However, the UXE framework, along with the enhanced ergonomics approach, goes beyond these efforts with more tactical and strategic approaches to empower HFE professionals to address the challenges that were discussed earlier, such as the E2E UX, UX roadmaps and emerging UX to influence product direction and platform capability definitions.

4.2 Differences in the scope of applying ergonomics in product development lifecycle between the UXE framework and current HFE approaches The UXE framework implies a broader application scope of ergonomics in the product development lifecycle in terms of the timing for HFE professionals to start their engagement and the extended scope of their deliverables in the product lifecycle (see Figure 9). Figure 9 compares the differences in the application scope in the product lifecycle between the UXE framework and current HFE approaches. As illustrated in Figure 9, currently, HFE professionals typically start their engagement when projects commence, and the scope and the high-level product requirements have been clearly defined. HFE professionals contribute to product design through activities, such as documenting user needs, transferring the needs into UI interaction design and validating UI design through iterative usability tests (Nielsen 1993; Cooper 2004; Hartson and Pyla 2012). With such an approach,

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Figure 9. Comparison of scope of applying ergonomics in product development lifecycle between UXE framework and current HFE approach.

HFE professionals typically work in a passive work mode by following predefined requirements constrained by the nearterm scope of the current product release. Thus, HFE professionals basically address the UX of a product from a narrow project-view perspective. There are few suggestions on what involvements HFE professionals should follow or how the engagement should be effectively defined (Cooper 2004; Sanders and McCormick 1993). For instance, in Sander and McCormick’s book, as a classic ergonomic design handbook, there is a lack of guidance on the HFE application scope in a product development lifecycle, just providing ergonomic design guidance (Sanders and McCormick 1993). Recently, Go¨bel and Zschernack (2012) proposed a systematic approach for modelling the ergonomics involvement in a product design process, but the approach only provides a modelling concept that adopts system design concepts to model how problem-solving ability of humans can be integrated in the design for different design problems, without providing constructive suggestions on the practice. In contrast, the UXE framework, as illustrated in Figure 9, encourages HFE professionals to broaden their applications in a product development lifecycle in three ways: (1) in much earlier stages of a product lifecycle, they should help define a new product marketing opportunity and the platform architecture capabilities based on identified emerging UX as well as identify prioritised user needs that should be addressed for a current program based on a developed UX roadmap; (2) during a product development process, they should address broader UX touch points across the solution lifecycle stages through a systematic E2E UX approach and more collaborative efforts, instead of just focusing on UI interaction design and its usability and (3) in the post-release and future release stages, they should be more strategic in influencing future design directions by leveraging UX roadmaps from a long-term perspective. It is obvious that the application scope promoted by the UXE framework spans the entire product lifecycle from predevelopment phases to future release from a broad UX ecosystem perspective, which is much broader than current HFE approaches. Put together, the UXE framework enhances current ergonomics design approaches in terms of the application scope and engagement process, so that HFE professionals can be more creative, strategic and influential than today when making contributions to product design. Besides, current product development approaches in most cases may not effectively encourage and facilitate such earlier and broader engagements for HFE professionals. Thus, implementing the UXE framework also encourages a culture shift in an organisation to increase the awareness of UX. HFE professionals should proactively and strategically partner with others to optimise their engagement and involvement in a product development lifecycle so that they can maximise the opportunities to influence.

4.3 A formalised ergonomic design process of executing the UXE framework and methodological considerations Table 7 summarises the major steps taken in the three case studies from an ergonomic design process perspective when executing the enhanced ergonomics approaches. As shown in Table 7, the three case studies share a similar execution process by starting from the ‘Gather UX Data’ step at the beginning to the end of the ‘Manage Influence’ step, which represents a formalised process of executing the UXE framework. Overall, from the process perspective, there are some common steps that are aimed at in human-centred design approaches shared between the UXE framework and current HFE processes, that is gathering UX data, building UX deliverables (e.g. UI concepts), conducting UX tests to validate UX deliverables (e.g. usability testing of UI concepts) with end users and so on. (Cooper 2004; Mayhew 1999; Nielsen 1993).

Ergonomics Table 7.

Formalised process of executing UXE framework.

Formalised ergonomic process 1. Gather UX data 2. Identify the relevant UX ecosystem components 3. Create UX building blocks

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E2E UX (Case study 1) UX issues identified across touch points Define the major human– artefact interaction touch points to be addressed by prioritising the UX issues E2E UX scorecard and tracking process, plans for addressing prioritised touch points

UX roadmap (Case study 2) User needs and usage Prioritise user needs and usages in an optimal sequence over time Vision, guiding principles, hierarchy, priority of user needs/usage over time

4. Build UX deliverables

Optimise touch points (biz process, UI, training, user support, etc.)

UX Roadmap

5. Conduct UX validation

Integrated E2E UX test

6. Manage influences

Close UX gaps as tracked in the E2E UX scorecard

Validation through mapping with technology/product roadmap Influence product roadmaps

Emerging UX (Case study 3) User needs and usages Model emerging user usages and prioritise identified usages Identified emerging UX associated with prioritised user needs and usages Leading new UX, Conceptualised future UX (UI concept, etc.) Prototype UX test Influence new product definition and platform architectures

However, there are a few specific steps, which are different from the current HFE approach, that are required to support the UXE framework. First of all, HFE professionals need to identify and prioritise the relevant UX ecosystem components as defined by the UXE framework; that is identify the artefacts interacting with all aspects of a solution across its lifecycle stages in order to address the most pertinent UX touch points, identify user needs and usages in an optimal sequence over time and model emerging user usages. Once identified, the following step is to prioritise the components based on the characteristics of UX ecosystem (e.g. the UX evolution in terms of the optimal sequence of user needs and usages over time, the emerging UX associated with prioritised user needs and usages). Second, HFE professionals need to create building blocks based on the identified UX ecosystem components. Here, current HFE processes and methods need to be enhanced and more research is needed to facilitate some key activities, such as an E2E UX success scorecard and the tracking system, the effective development and representations of UX roadmaps, and the modelling of emerging UX based on new user usages of technology both quantitatively and qualitatively. Lately, HFE professionals need to ‘sell’ the deliverables in order to influence product design. This is a unique need as compared to current HFE approaches. Individual influence management skillset is more desired here than current HFE approaches, as HFE professionals now work towards more strategic tasks and should be able to manage influences once a UX roadmap or an emerging UX associated with new usage models is defined. Besides, an organisation’s maturity in promoting product UX is a major factor in contributing to the success of the UXE framework. This also entails more collaborations than current HFE approaches. For instance, to effectively address the E2E UX, HFE professionals need to closely collaborate with business partners who own each touch point in the corresponding domain; to influence product roadmaps, HFE professionals need to closely work with technology and business people who own the product roadmaps, new definitions of marketing and platform architecture. There are some concerns in the HFE community regarding how ergonomics can influence design by leveraging research findings from a methodology perspective (Dekker and Nyce 2004; Farrington-Darby et al. 2006). Specifically, Dekker and Nyce (2004) argue that a crucial issue in ergonomics is the translation of research findings into design guidance. They assessed three methods, such as experiments, surveys and ethnography, and concluded that each of them can contribute to design by leveraging valid data from human work. This paper echoes their argument. Correspondingly, the methods deployed in the three case studies include usability and integrated E2E UX tests as an experimental approach to address E2E UX with high priority on E2E UX gap analysis (Case study 1), the surveys used to identify prioritised user needs and usages to help develop UX roadmaps (Case study 2) and the ethnographic method deployed to identify emerging UX associated with prioritised user needs and usages (Case study 3). A key contribution also made in this paper is to provide an enhanced

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ergonomic design process, so that HFE professionals can leverage the process to prioritise the UX data collected in developing the building blocks as highlighted in Table 5. This complements current HFE’s approach such as UI interaction design and usability tests (e.g. Cooper 2004; Nielson 2005). Thus, the enhanced HFE process and methods can more effectively and strategically influence product design. Finally, although the three case studies and the enhanced HFE approaches are presented in the context of a high-tech enterprise environment and specifically in the corporate environment of a chip-making manufacturer, the UXE framework and the enhanced HFE approaches may be generalised beyond this specific context. It is believed that the UX ecosystem is independent of business domains. More specifically, any product that is built for end users should engineer its E2E UX with multiple touch points across its lifecycle stages; the variation in the multiple touch points depends on the domain complexity. UX roadmaps and emerging UX that drives new product market opportunities also apply to any products that intend to deliver optimal UX. However, further research is still needed for further validation. All in all, as technology advances and human life improves, the UX ecosystem will continuously evolve, and new components will be added to existing UX ecosystems, all of which make UX richer and more versatile. Additional best practices should be developed to help HFE professionals contribute to the UX of product design within rich UX ecosystems in today’s dynamic and versatile social-tech environment. Acknowledgements The author would like to acknowledge that the case study 3 was based on the work done by the author’s fellow HFE professionals at Intel as reported in their publications cited in this paper. Their work provides supporting evidence to the proposed UXE framework. Any opinion, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of other individuals or any corporations.

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