Improving mobile solution workflows and usability using near field communication technology

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. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.