Small!size!enterprises!within!the!outdoor!industry!seldom!use!a!structured!process!or!method!when!involving!users!in!product!development.!One!reason!for!this!is!that!many!structured!development!processes!are!designed!for!large!companies!with!very!different!resources.!When!involving!users!in!product!development!processes,!the!most!common!user! is! an! elite! athlete.! She! or! he! often! has! different! requirements! than! the! regular!consumer!and!in!the!customers?!point!of!view;!this!leads!to!nonCmaximized!developed!products.!!The! result! of! this! thesis! is! a! user! involvement! process! for! small! outdoor! companies!based! on! the! Sister! Kenny! Research! Center! Innovation! Handbook,! a! product!development!process,!which!itself!is!based!on!a!phaseCgate!model.!The!process!focuses!on!the!user!category!enthusiastic!amateurs,!since!this!is!what!companies!in!the!industry!require.!The!process!also! focuses!on!how!and!where! small!outdoor! companies! should!involve!users!and!give!recommendations!on!how!many!users!that!should!be!involved!in!a! product! development! process,! different! from! what! the! theory! recommend.! The!process! also! builds! on! that! ideas! should! come! from! the! users! first,! and! then! being!further!developed!by!the!company's!product!developers.!The!degree!of!communication!between!users!and!the!company!is!shown!and!the!report!clarifies!the!user!involvement!intensity!in!product!development!processes.!!The!involvement!process!that!has!been!developed!has!also!been!summarized!in!a!guide!that! can!be!used!by! a! company!on! a!daily!basis.!This! contains! information!on,! among!other!things,!how!users!are!selected!and!how!to!plan!a!workshop.!!! !.

Computer use at work has risen considerably over the past fifteen years and is currently a relatively common phenomenon when 76 percent of women and 72 percent of men using the computer in their daily work (SCB Arbetsmiljörapport 2009).According to Gulliksen and Göransson (2009), Sweden is one of the countries which are more advanced in the procurement of computer systems at work. He means that Sweden has unique opportunities and conditions for user participation in the development of computer systems, when the user has the right to influence their working environment through a law in the Work Environment Act. The paper examines the importance of user involvement in system development and the Swedish company's approach and experience of user involvement. To highlight and explore the importance of user involvement, there has been a case study in which users have been representative of the development process. The case study has been conducted on a case company where the system IST analys was in need of a new interface.

In most software engineering project, users are only involved in the beginning of the project as a help to design the requirements specification but users can be involved after this phase too, but is it effective to do so? With this report we would like to investigate how effective it is to involve users after the requirements specification has been written and approved. To find out how effective it is to involve the users we try some fast and simple involvement techniques on a quite far gone project. These techniques include ethnographic studies, prototypes and surveys. We also interviewed a couple of people who work with usability and finally delivered a report with our results to them to find out if they found our result relevant.

In most software engineering project, users are only involved in the beginning of the project as a help to design the requirements specification but users can be involved after this phase too, but is it effective to do so? With this report we would like to investigate how effective it is to involve users after the requirements specification has been written and approved. To find out how effective it is to involve the users we try some fast and simple involvement techniques on a quite far gone project. These techniques include ethnographic studies, prototypes and surveys. We also interviewed a couple of people who work with usability and finally delivered a report with our results to them to find out if they found our result relevant. By also documenting how much time we spent involving users we will show to which degree user involvement is effective. We found out that a couple of fast techniques could get very much result in the form of usability enhancing suggestions to the developers.

Idag kopplas ofta etik inom användarmedverkan till behovet av användare i utvecklingsstadiet av IT-produkter. Det är svårt att hitta etiska riktlinjer för bemötande av användare genom en projektprocess. I denna studie hanterades detta genom att identifiera etiska temaområden relaterade till bemötande och samarbete med användare genom en litteraturstudie. Studien syftar till att undersöka hur praktiker hanterar utmaningar som de upplever vid användarinvolvering i ett IT-projekts olika stadier. Den syftar även till att ge praktiker stöd vid upptäckt och hantering av etiska utmaningar.

Author: Gabriella Agné and Helena LarssonTitle: Disability policy program ? a case study of a municipals implementation of UNs Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.Supervisor: Marianne Westring-NordhAssessor: Ulf DruggeThis study aims to examine how a small municipal in southern Sweden works with the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and examine the assistant officers knowledge about this work and user organizations inclusion and user involvement.The study operates from a qualitative approach based on the results of nine semi-structured interviews with local politicians, assistance officers and representatives from three different user organizations.The results show that the municipal has chosen to work with the implementation of the convention by creating policy programs for their departments through dialogue with user organizations, and by mapping the accessibility to public places. The results also show that the assistant officers have been given no information regarding the convention or the policy programs from their employers and instead operate from national legislations and prepositions. The user organizations feel that they were initially included in the process, but that their impact has later been removed due to structural reorganization..

The goal of this essay was to study if the way gaming review sites presented their review evaluation has any influences the level of product involvement in the users it attracts. The assumption we did during the essay was that there was a connection between user?s level of product involvement and the quality of the community. To test this assumption we started out by performing observations on the comment sections in three gaming news sites which varied in their method for evaluating games. The result of these observations showed a significantly higher community quality in one of the websites.

This Master Thesis has been carried out in cooperation with Silva Sweden AB. A companywhich manufactures products like compasses, pedometers, headlamps, hiking poles and otherequipment for the out door life and navigation. The purpose of the project has been toassemble methods and models which support user involvement in Silva?s design process.Thus, to increase the number of products with purchasing power, enhance product quality aswell as increase foundation for new product ideas.The focus through out the project has been to assemble a pallet with methods for userinvolvement and from this select a few methods that will fit the company. The purpose of thepallet is to be accessible for the company during their work of change with the design processthat has been going on and will be in the future.

Hösterminen 2006.

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is a broad discipline that studies different concerns regarding interactive systems? development. One of the major interest points within the discipline is the reasoning behind building specific functionality into computers and the long-term effects that usage of systems will have on humans.Within Human Computer Interaction there are theories and frameworks how to involve a user in the process of developing new systems. In this paper focus is applied to the development process within developing applications for Enterprice Digital Assistants (EDA) and to what extent the end-users are involved in the process. Fazer Bageri AB has been choosen to represent a business corporation that uses handheld computers in their everyday tasks.The method used to gather information for this study has been by performing interviews and observations with key stakeholders at Fazer Bageri AB and MobiOne AB.

In this paper we explore the relations between context and feedback generated in three user-centered evaluations of a flash-based game. Whether it?s the social context, the physical context or the degree of intrusion from the evaluator, they all contribute to the quality of the feedback received. The selection of test subjects is a narrow process, which gives the above mentioned factors different meaning. Contextual factors have shown to influence the feedback given within both usability and user-experience.

Research has concluded that meaningless differentiation with trivial attributes sometimes can be a successful strategy. However, the effect varies with respect to certain aspects such as the price of the product and the decision context. How the characteristics of the consumer influence the effect of trivial attributes has until now been unknown. This thesis investigates how the consumer?s level of knowledge and personal involvement influence the effects of trivial attributes on product preferences and product attitudes.

The purpose of this essay is to describe what difficulties and challenges are for teachers of religious education at upper secondary school. The essay is written from a teacher's perspective, where the focus is on the teacher's perceptions of the difficulties and challenges of teaching religious education. The methodology for the collection of information was done through qualitative interviews. Previous research shows that one of the challenges in the teaching profession is the interpretation of the curriculum, and then which of those is correct. The essay shows that the biggest challenges that teachers experience in the subject of religious education is the students' prejudice against different religious groups, and also the difficulty of getting students to understand the purpose of what is being taught.

A recent trend in the technological evolution has been to increase the mobility of the end-user. A contributing factor is the fast rate of improvement in the smartphone area. This, in turn, has changed the expectations end-users have on the availability of services, which has allowed mobile applications, apps, to find their place in everyday life.This study has been conducted at Scania?s Fleet Management department that offers a web-based service where haulage contractors can administer, monitor and follow up on their vehicle fleets. The purpose of this study was to investigate if Scania?s existing web service should be extended into the mobile area, and if so, what organizational and technical challenges app development imposes.

Background: Knowledge of customer needs is a key factor in companies? struggle to develop successful products. Several studies illustrate that the main reason for failure in product development is lack of customer understanding. Lately considerable changes have occurred. Large-scale mass production is continuously being replaced by customer orientation, especially in the high technological market.