文/ Ming Chueng (新西蘭奧克蘭理工大學(xué))
給大家介紹一下我今天的主題,它其實(shí)是為用戶體驗(yàn)當(dāng)中設(shè)計(jì)的一個(gè)新的模式,MPR(Media Perception-Reaction)模式。我現(xiàn)在是在澳大利亞工作,我之后會(huì)去新西蘭的奧克蘭工作了。在座有多少人去過(guò)新西蘭?在座有多少人去過(guò)澳大利亞?在座有多少人去過(guò)中國(guó)?我知道了,我知道中國(guó)比較熱門比較火。
這是我自己的一個(gè)簡(jiǎn)單介紹,我是Ming Cheung,他們之前叫我Ming博士,實(shí)際上我注冊(cè)了一個(gè)我的官方網(wǎng)站,目前還什么都沒(méi)有。如果我在上面放東西的話我會(huì)告訴你的。我是設(shè)計(jì)教授,同時(shí)我也是奧克蘭理工大學(xué)傳達(dá)設(shè)計(jì)系主任。學(xué)校的設(shè)計(jì)學(xué)院在新西蘭排名第一、全球第五,是非常好的,如果大家想要去奧克蘭理工大學(xué)進(jìn)行研究生學(xué)位的攻讀的話,讓我知道。我今天的演講分為4部分,首先是數(shù)字服務(wù)創(chuàng)新,然后講到用戶體驗(yàn)設(shè)計(jì),再是我最新發(fā)明的MPR模型,也就是媒體感知回應(yīng)的模型,最后講一講它的兩個(gè)應(yīng)用。
首先什么是數(shù)字服務(wù)的創(chuàng)新?事實(shí)上再問(wèn)大家一個(gè)問(wèn)題,在座有多少人有智能手機(jī)?蘋果、三星都可以,小米都可以。多少人晚上睡覺的時(shí)候手機(jī)都不離手的?像我每天晚上手機(jī)都是不離手的,所以我24小時(shí)都是待命狀態(tài)。我今天凌晨三點(diǎn)的時(shí)候還在回郵件,五點(diǎn)的時(shí)候還在回郵件,其實(shí)這是不太健康的生活方式。
在座有多少人每天都使用應(yīng)用?這些應(yīng)用現(xiàn)在在我們生活當(dāng)中扮演非常重要的角色。我想說(shuō)的是,我們正從制造業(yè)或制造經(jīng)濟(jì)向知識(shí)型的服務(wù)經(jīng)濟(jì)轉(zhuǎn)變。我預(yù)言,在接下來(lái)的五年到十年,世界上的所有都將和服務(wù)設(shè)計(jì)有關(guān)。
事實(shí)上,人們意識(shí)到國(guó)家、企業(yè)在數(shù)字服務(wù)的創(chuàng)新當(dāng)中會(huì)有很多機(jī)會(huì)很多利潤(rùn)的。在西方,我們有蘋果有谷歌,例如有蘋果的iTunes、APP Store,谷歌的搜索、地圖、YouTube等。在中國(guó)我們可以用百度、淘寶、微信等,其實(shí)我們都會(huì)用到各種各樣的應(yīng)用。
在英國(guó)也有很多成功的公司,如Zoopla, King, DeepMind 和 SwiftKey。其中King是Facebook上最大的游戲開發(fā)公司,像SwiftKey在手機(jī)輸入法的智能預(yù)測(cè)方面做得非常出色。在澳大利亞,近期的研究顯示國(guó)家85%的勞動(dòng)力生產(chǎn)了82%的總增加值GVA(衡量一個(gè)部門對(duì)經(jīng)濟(jì)總產(chǎn)出的貢獻(xiàn)度)。因此,服務(wù)變得越來(lái)越重要。
我們?cè)僮屑?xì)看一看,你會(huì)理解到所有這些服務(wù)創(chuàng)新的新的應(yīng)用,其實(shí)在數(shù)字時(shí)代到來(lái)之前是沒(méi)有的?,F(xiàn)在我們有蘋果手機(jī),有智能手機(jī),服務(wù)變得尤為重要,成為生產(chǎn)有用的產(chǎn)品和副產(chǎn)品過(guò)程中關(guān)鍵的媒介,對(duì)后工業(yè)社會(huì)的有意義的互動(dòng)產(chǎn)生越來(lái)越大的影響。
我們?yōu)槭裁葱枰@樣的服務(wù)體系?因?yàn)檫@樣的服務(wù)體系其實(shí)會(huì)重塑我們現(xiàn)有物質(zhì)世界的想法、價(jià)值和功能。它甚至能轉(zhuǎn)變成一個(gè)高度整合的服務(wù)系統(tǒng),提升我們社會(huì)、經(jīng)濟(jì)環(huán)境中的可持續(xù)性和人道主義,同時(shí)賦予很多的行業(yè)一些競(jìng)爭(zhēng)優(yōu)勢(shì)。
接下來(lái)我們講用戶體驗(yàn)設(shè)計(jì),我想大家也意識(shí)到過(guò)去十年當(dāng)中,我們一直用了各種各樣的應(yīng)用,而且每天的生活當(dāng)中充斥了各種各樣的信息。我們會(huì)在個(gè)人設(shè)備、家用電器、運(yùn)輸系統(tǒng)中使用這些信息和應(yīng)用。我在澳大利亞新買了一個(gè)房子,并在手機(jī)上安裝了一個(gè)智能家庭系統(tǒng)。我每天早上會(huì)把米放到電飯煲里面,在我回家前的半小時(shí),我就在手機(jī)上按一個(gè)鍵,等到我回家以后,這個(gè)米就煮好了。正是這樣一個(gè)實(shí)時(shí)連接且極度聰明的智能系統(tǒng),幫助我們獲得更高質(zhì)量的生活體驗(yàn)。
不過(guò),其實(shí)我每次都會(huì)和和大家強(qiáng)調(diào)一個(gè)內(nèi)容,無(wú)論是在行業(yè)還是在教育當(dāng)中,我都要強(qiáng)調(diào)一點(diǎn),就是我們不僅僅只是了解用戶,還要了解場(chǎng)景了解應(yīng)用。像在座的各位,你們到教室里現(xiàn)在在聽我們的課程。你出了這個(gè)講堂以后也有不同的角色,你可能是學(xué)生你可能是教授。那你回家了,你是子女。和朋友在一起時(shí),你是他們的伴侶。你有許多不同的角色。所以我們要學(xué)習(xí)要了解用戶,但是你要知道用戶的身份是會(huì)隨著不同的場(chǎng)景發(fā)生變化的。所以我們要了解用戶和場(chǎng)景,這是一個(gè)整合式的概念而不是割裂的概念。所以,接下來(lái)我要說(shuō),服務(wù)是主導(dǎo)一切的。
如果我是在座的各位,我剛開始做設(shè)計(jì),我是真的非常認(rèn)真的想要做服務(wù)設(shè)計(jì)的話,那么大家就要想一想說(shuō),我如何把我的服務(wù)設(shè)計(jì)融入到我的整個(gè)產(chǎn)品設(shè)計(jì)當(dāng)中。
其實(shí)在研究當(dāng)中,我也發(fā)現(xiàn)了一些問(wèn)題,很多設(shè)計(jì)領(lǐng)域的研究都是關(guān)于自我反省和實(shí)踐經(jīng)驗(yàn)的。但是我們還是需要理論的模型,因此我的另一個(gè)主要研究方向就是在設(shè)計(jì)領(lǐng)域總結(jié)出一套理論的模型。我首先就發(fā)現(xiàn)了服務(wù)系統(tǒng)方面的一個(gè)空白,用戶體驗(yàn)以及UGC,也就是用戶產(chǎn)生內(nèi)容,它現(xiàn)在在服務(wù)的成敗當(dāng)中扮演越來(lái)越重要的地位。然而,很多相關(guān)的研究當(dāng)中,我會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)他們其實(shí)只會(huì)看一個(gè)方面,了解一部分的數(shù)據(jù),例如博客、服務(wù)評(píng)價(jià)、推特或視頻,以此評(píng)價(jià)服務(wù)的接受度。
事實(shí)上我們現(xiàn)在所處的時(shí)代,媒體之間的相互依存性越來(lái)越強(qiáng)了。那么我們?nèi)绾稳ニ伎迹绾稳グ衙襟w的相互依存性反映到我們的理論上。而且我們還在一個(gè)領(lǐng)域上發(fā)現(xiàn)了空白,服務(wù)的提供商希望響應(yīng)客戶的需求,但是他們不清楚線上的努力是否提升了客戶的信任度和滿意度,以及在人機(jī)互動(dòng)的情況下是否存在一些媒體相關(guān)的阻礙影響客戶的參與度與做出一些貢獻(xiàn)的意愿。我們所有人都在做自我反省式的案例分析,一些采訪也是如此。但通常情況下我們獲得的這些數(shù)據(jù)都二手?jǐn)?shù)據(jù)。因此我會(huì)想,當(dāng)我們做研究時(shí),我們需要取得一些實(shí)時(shí)的真實(shí)的數(shù)據(jù),并且研究在與多媒體交互的過(guò)程中如何切實(shí)地提升信任度和滿意度。這是我希望研究找到的信息。
跟大家解釋一下我的學(xué)術(shù)方面的研究,我試圖從原因和過(guò)程兩方面提升數(shù)字媒體創(chuàng)新下用戶的體驗(yàn)設(shè)計(jì)。這是一個(gè)兩階段的研究,第一階與7大城市42家服務(wù)型公司的設(shè)計(jì)專家進(jìn)行深度的面對(duì)面的互動(dòng),包括像悉尼、墨爾本、香港、倫敦、紐約、上海、北京。我選擇這些城市是因?yàn)樗麄冇惺澜缰姆?wù)公司的總部。
所有這些訪談是由我自己進(jìn)行的,為確保我使用的凱利方格法在應(yīng)用的過(guò)程當(dāng)中保持一致。我們要求每位被采訪者列舉在他她積極參與的項(xiàng)目中的6個(gè)數(shù)字服務(wù)創(chuàng)新項(xiàng)目。再?gòu)闹须S機(jī)選取3個(gè)項(xiàng)目,根據(jù)服務(wù)設(shè)計(jì)要素,找出2個(gè)不同的項(xiàng)目,結(jié)果會(huì)填入凱利方格中。這一過(guò)程會(huì)在每個(gè)被采訪者上重復(fù)多次。
被采訪者還被要求根據(jù)提升用戶體驗(yàn)的設(shè)計(jì)服務(wù)內(nèi)涵的影響力打分,1分最弱,5分最強(qiáng)。同時(shí),被采訪者還需提供證據(jù),表明客戶對(duì)他們所選的6個(gè)項(xiàng)目的反應(yīng)。
評(píng)分的結(jié)果突顯了設(shè)計(jì)師在數(shù)字服務(wù)創(chuàng)新中需要考慮的幾個(gè)關(guān)鍵要素。經(jīng)被采訪者同意,這42個(gè)、每個(gè)大約2小時(shí)的訪問(wèn)會(huì)被錄音并一字不差的記錄下來(lái)。有兩個(gè)獨(dú)立的分析師對(duì)上述材料用主題分析法(thematic coding),根據(jù)評(píng)分得出的主題在采訪人信息上尋找符合的主題。
我發(fā)現(xiàn),在現(xiàn)有的文獻(xiàn)里我們很難發(fā)現(xiàn)一個(gè)對(duì)用戶體驗(yàn)明確的定義,這就是為什么我試圖去定義它。用戶體驗(yàn),是一個(gè)增強(qiáng)客戶信任度和滿意度的過(guò)程,是用戶在與服務(wù)設(shè)計(jì)要素的交互體驗(yàn)中,提高用戶對(duì)創(chuàng)新點(diǎn)的感知的過(guò)程。
你可以看到這個(gè)定義其實(shí)是與我的模型相呼應(yīng)的。舉個(gè)我們研究中的例子,我通過(guò)這個(gè)app在澳洲買了第一個(gè)房子,他給我充分的信息,不多不少都是我需要的。用導(dǎo)航菜單很便捷同時(shí)還提供一些私人服務(wù),買、賣、租等,提供給你這三個(gè)選項(xiàng)這樣你就不會(huì)混亂了。一開始我想買一個(gè)新家,然后它讓你去篩選,我就選擇了我想要的未來(lái)的房間未來(lái)的家是什么樣子的,還有像類型,我想要的是公寓還是別墅。
我們還可以選擇,比如說(shuō)價(jià)格的高低,我們想要的是什么,預(yù)算怎么樣,還有多少停車場(chǎng),我需要多少廁所多少主臥。它會(huì)保存我的需求信息,在我下一次瀏覽的時(shí)候不用重新再選擇一遍。當(dāng)我點(diǎn)開二級(jí)菜單,我能看到具體的房子圖片、谷歌地圖上的位置信息、房屋描述、開放時(shí)間和周邊的學(xué)校。它也能夠讓這些信息可視化,例如它在地圖上添加書簽保存我看過(guò)的地方,當(dāng)我點(diǎn)開書簽我就能看到圖片。我還能在app上發(fā)送日程安排約看房子,非常方便。
第二階段,我開始要寫這個(gè)論文,同時(shí)我們可以測(cè)試這個(gè)MPR模型實(shí)驗(yàn)到底怎么樣。通過(guò)現(xiàn)場(chǎng)試驗(yàn),我想要去研究一下整個(gè)的設(shè)計(jì)的過(guò)程,大概是四個(gè)月,從而可以與用戶進(jìn)行充分的交互獲得足夠的信息。設(shè)計(jì)試驗(yàn)包括5個(gè)設(shè)計(jì)因子(信息、導(dǎo)航、定制、交互度、娛樂(lè))的全因子階乘函數(shù),即需要?jiǎng)?chuàng)作32個(gè)用戶界面,也就是2的5次方。
比如,界面1以同時(shí)看到上述5個(gè)方面為特色。為了確保它的準(zhǔn)確性,在制作階段,有50個(gè)目標(biāo)群體的代表受邀,根據(jù)設(shè)計(jì)評(píng)判標(biāo)準(zhǔn)使用界面,確保有90%的客戶認(rèn)同。之后我使用結(jié)構(gòu)方程模型(SEQ)分析登錄記錄和調(diào)查問(wèn)卷。然后我有九百多個(gè)被訪者,960個(gè),是由32乘以30得到的,從他們身上獲得實(shí)驗(yàn)的反饋。
我們看到有兩個(gè)啟示,第一個(gè)是創(chuàng)新型的服務(wù)的設(shè)計(jì)代表了一個(gè)組織上的兩難的情況。一方面服務(wù)創(chuàng)新,相對(duì)于傳統(tǒng)經(jīng)濟(jì)策略,提供了可持續(xù)的經(jīng)濟(jì)利益,但是另一方面,它也會(huì)被公司認(rèn)為是沒(méi)有成功保障的重大冒險(xiǎn)行為。從它的性質(zhì)來(lái)說(shuō),創(chuàng)新會(huì)被定義為驚奇或者新鮮的體驗(yàn)。對(duì)于一個(gè)公司來(lái)說(shuō),只有當(dāng)帶來(lái)利益、替身品牌價(jià)值時(shí),需要看它的價(jià)值,這項(xiàng)新舉措也會(huì)被允許和接受。MPR模型的核心是隨意的關(guān)系在創(chuàng)新性服務(wù)設(shè)計(jì)中占有重要的地位,因?yàn)樗o企業(yè)一種表達(dá)想象和做法的方式,也能充分發(fā)揮想象,考慮用戶對(duì)設(shè)計(jì)變化的反應(yīng)。
第二個(gè)啟示,創(chuàng)造力帶來(lái)新想法,創(chuàng)新是把這些想法應(yīng)用到特定場(chǎng)景的一個(gè)過(guò)程。創(chuàng)造力僅僅是標(biāo)志著創(chuàng)新的開始,不像在其他領(lǐng)域當(dāng)中的創(chuàng)新,服務(wù)的創(chuàng)新涉及不同情景、文化的用戶,并非是與世隔絕的,。
MPR的這個(gè)模型可以鼓勵(lì)設(shè)計(jì)師走出他們的舒適區(qū),而且可以理解現(xiàn)有的選擇的利弊,而且可以在潛在的把他們公司以及客戶的服務(wù)價(jià)值最大化。只有在挑戰(zhàn)已有的假設(shè)和正確的部分要素時(shí),驚奇和新鮮的體驗(yàn)才會(huì)出現(xiàn)。
My topic is on the Media Perception-Reaction Model, that I developed a new theoretical model for designing user experience. And I’m currently working in Australia but I’m moving to Auckland after this trip and I’m going to take a new job in Auckland, New Zealand. So I’ll ask you some questions time to time during my 20 minutes’ talk. The first question is how many of you have been to New Zealand? How many of you have been to Australia? How many of you have been to China? I see,China is very popular.
This is a brief introduction of myself, I’m Ming Chueng. People use to call me Dr. Ming. I’m currently working on professor of design,also head of Communication Design in School of Art and Design in Auckland University of Technology.The School of Design in AUT is No.1 in New Zealand and No.51 in the world. It is a very good school.I’m going to develop my topic into four areas, first into Digital Service Innovation, then talk about User Experience Design, then talk about theoretical model I developed called the Media Perception-Reaction Model——MPR Model, then I will draw two implications for my study.
First of all is digital service innovation. Can I ask you the second question: how many of you got a smart phone? How many of you sleep with your phone every night? I sleep with my phone every night, so I’m 24 hours on call, and 3:00 this morning I was checking email. It’s not a very healthy life style.
And how many of you use app every day? These apps are now part of our life. What I want to say is that if you look the scream over there we are moving from a manufacture industry or economy to knowledge-based service economies. And my prediction is that in the next five to ten years the world will be all about service design.
There is also growing awareness of the economic benefits the innovative digital services can bring to nations and organizations. Think about in western world, we have Apple and Google, for example. The App Store and iTunes of Apple, and Google Search, Google Maps and YouTube a lot. I know in China you might not have access to some of these platforms, but you use Baidu, Taobao,WeChat right?
There are also some successful UK companies, such as Zoopla, King,DeepMind, and SwiftKey. King Digital Entertainment is the largest game developer on Facebook, and SwiftKey is famous for its smart prediction technology for easier mobile typing.In Australia, the recent studies show that 85% of the country’s workforce and accounts for 82% of its real gross value added, which measures the contribution each sector makes to the economy. So service is getting very important.
And if you give a second look,then you will realize that these types of service system did not exist in the pre-digital era. So as we have product like this iPhone,and now service is becoming so important that it’s become “a key agent in the production and coproduction of useful things and meaningful interactions with the latter gathering influence in a postindustrial society”.
Why do we need this kind of service system? Because service system can redefine the meaning,value and functionality of physical products and systems. It can also transform them into highly integrated service systems able to enhance the sustainability and humaneness of our social and economic environments while offering industries a competitive edge.
Now I’m moving on to user experience design. You might realize that in the last 10 years we have been using applications every time,we have a lot of information in our daily life. And these kinds of information and application we use on personal devices, home appliances,transportation system, etc. I’ll tell you one thing in my home in Australia. I just bought a house over there. And I’ve got the intelligent home system into my phone, what I do instead before I go to work in the morning is putting some rice into my cooker. So half an hour before I arrive home, I just get onto the internet and press the button, so when I arrive home, the rice is ready. So this kind of very connected and also very smart intelligent system is actually helping us to get better quality of life.
One thing I always emphasize is that we need to study users, but we also need to study contexts. Think about you yourselves, when you are here, you are listening to our talk, when you go back to classroom many of you might be teachers and students, when you are home you are your parents’ son or daughter, when you are with your friends you are their company, you have different roles. So we study context, but the role of users changed according to the contexts. That’s why we are not only study user experience design, but also context experience design. That’s why we have to study interaction between users and contexts. And I’m going to say the service is now the king.
If I were you, if I just started on my design journey, I would really seriously think about service working development career and service design and how you can immigrate the service design into products.
At the same time, I identify some problem in research, I find that many of the studies in design field so far are about self-reflection,practical experience. We also need some theoretical models to come out.So one of my major directions in research is to develop design field.The first one is that I identify“gap”into a system field. I find that user experience and user-generated media content play an increasingly important role in service success.However, most studies to date have focused on one media channel at a time, for example, blogging, service reviews, tweets or videos, and evaluated its effects on service acceptance.
Now we are in a time when media and inter-dependency are getting more and more important. So my question is how can we reflect those things in our theoretical model.
I also identify another gap in the field that as service providers attempt to respond to perceived user demand, it remains unclear whether their online efforts actually encourage trust and satisfaction and whether there are media-specific barriers to active user engagement and willingness to contribute during human-interface interaction. So very often because we are doing selfreflection case study, all we're doing Some interview as well. Very often those Resource we get are secondhand. So I’m thinking about when we do research We need to get some real time data and study how to use the actual development of trust and satisfaction. In the process of interacting with multiple media at the same time. So that is the gap I identified.
So let me explain my academic study to you. I conducted a study to identify the factors and processes that could inform effective user experience design in digital service innovation. It was a two stage study, stage one involved in depth face to face Interviews with design professional employed by 42 service companies in seven major cities,Sydney and Melbourne;Hong Kong,Shanghai and Beijing, London and New York. Why I chose these seven cities is because the cities are home to some of the world's most renowned service companies.
All interviews were conducted in person by myself to ensure consistency in applying the repertory grid technique which was adopted to structure each interview. Each informant was asked to identify six digital service innovation projects in which he or she had had active involvement. Then three of the six were selected at random,and the informant was asked which two different from the third with respect to their service design elements. The results were entered in a repertory grit table. The process was repeated several times with each informant.
They were also asked to apply a rating scale Ranging from one (very little) to five (major impact) to indicate the extent to which design contributed to the user-perceived experience of this service. The informant was also asked to share evidence that might indicate users'level of reaction towards each of the six service innovation projects which were selected.
So this rating process identified the key elements taken into consideration by designers in the process of digital service innovation. With the informants'consent, all 42 interviews of around two hours each, were audiorecorded and transcribed verbatim.Two independent coders then undertook thematic coding analyses.
I also find that in the existing literature we cannot find a very clear definition of UX. That's why I try to define it on my own. User experience design is a process of enhancing user trust and satisfaction of a service by improving the user's perception of the innovativeness and athletics of the experience provided in the interaction between the users and service design elements
So you can see this definition actually echo the model I provide.Let me show you an example we studied. This is the application I used to buy my first home in Australia. It gave me just enough information, not more than I need,not less than I need. It’s very easy to navigate and also give you some personal service as well. So on level one you can choose to buy, rent or sold. It immediately gives you these three direction so you won't get lost. So in my case I like to buy a new home. And it let you to do the filtering. It can show me the different types of houses So I can choose the property types of house that I like.
It also allows me to see the selection according to the price from high to low. And also allow me to choose how many bedrooms I need,and how many bathrooms I need. And it also allow me to save the information that I chose so next time I do the research,I can just clicked,instead of redo the selection. When I click to the second level and it gives me the details of pictures and locations, with google map.The description, and the opening time. And what schools are around.It also allows me to visualize the information. For example, it shows me a map with book marks, and every time I click on the book marks, I can see the pictures. It also allows me to send the schedule so it's very convenient.
Stage two of the study involved testing the MPR model via a stimulate field experiment in which the impacts of a full range of design aspects were measured systematically over a four-week period, thus allowing sufficient Interaction amongst the participants to take place. The experimental design consisted of full factorial combinations of the five design aspects (information,navigation, customization, engagement and entertainment.), which demanded the creation of 32 sets of user interfaces.
So for example, interface number one features a strong profile of all five aspects. At the production stage, 50 target group representatives were invited, to access each interface, according to its design criteria And make sure I achieve ninety percent agreement.Then I use structural equation modeling, to analysis the log records and questionnaire together. And I also do focus group interviews with random selected participants to capture their Rituals back to views of the reported perceptions and reactions towards the experimental stimuli.
Then I’ll show you the implications. The first implication is that innovation service design presents a dilemma to organizations.On the one hand, service innovation may offer a substantial economic benefits over conventional business strategies. On the other, it may be perceived by companies as involving significant risk with no guarantee of success. By its nature, innovation is characterized by surprise and novelty. For a business, however,that novel choice will only be allowed or welcome if it means increased profit and better brand value. The core proposition of the MPR model is that causal relations play an important role in innovative service design because they afford the business a way to represent how it envisions and operates, and because they allow it imagination free region in considering, how the users of their service could or would react if changes were made to its design.
The second implication is that for creativity is the act of generating new ideas, then innovation is the process of applying those ideas to a particular context.Creativity merely marks the onset of innovation. Unlike innovations in many other fields, service innovation deals with networks of users often across context and cultures, and thus does not occur in a vacuum. The rationale of the MPR model is to encourage designers to step out of their comfort zone and understand the pros and cons of available options that could potentially maximize their companies' or clients' service value.Surprise and novelty emerge only when they Challenge both existing assumptions and the validity of their constituent elements.