The aim of this master thesis is to study how academic librarians can overcome the gap between themselves and the user. The gap, as we see it, is generated by the user's deeper knowledge surrounding her subject in comparison to the librarian. This knowledge gives the user possibilities to handle certain discourses attached to the subject and a knowledge how sub-subjects relate to each other within the main subject. At the same time the user is in need of help to find information within her subject, this need needs to be explained to the librarian as a search expert. The scope of this master thesis is to find how the librarian, tactically, can reach the users need despite lack of subject knowledge.

Boverket har huvudansvar för att skapa en portal för samhällsplanering som ska kunna förse kommuner, landsting, företag och privatpersoner med olika typer av kartinformation. Denna portal kallas Planeringsportalen och som ett led i dess utveckling hölls ett designmöte i april 2007. Inför mötet gjordes en analys av diverse förebilder för att beskriva de goda designlösningar som finns i genren WebGIS, enligt förlaga från Lundberg, Holmlid och Arvolas (2007) arbete. Uppsatsen beskriver hur dessa designlösningar kan användas i designen av Planeringsportalen tillsammans med en redogörelse för hur förebilder kan bidra till en bättre designprocess. Genren representeras i arbetet av webbplatserna Eniro, Norge digitalt, RATP samt Mapquest som alla studerats enligt ett formaliserat förfarande.

Tidigare forskning har visat att systematisk självrapportering är en fördelaktig metod för att följa enpersons psykiska mående över tid, och att en digital mätmetod i sin tur skulle innebära många praktiskafördelar jämfört med en analog. Detta är en experimentell randomiserad, kontrollerad studie som medutgångspunkt i personcentrerad vård och spelifiering undersöker 35 personers användarfrekvens ochattityder efter en tvåveckorsperiod där hälften har fått prova att självskatta sitt psykiska mående via enmobilapplikation, och hälften fått göra detsamma via ett analogt stämningsformulär. Resultatet visar enhögre användarfrekvens bland deltagarna i mobilapplikationsgruppen, samt ett uttalat intresse hosbägge grupper för digitala metoder för självskattning av psykiskt mående. Bägge metoderna ansesstärka personcentrerad omvårdnad. The aim of this study is to explore user frequency and attitudes for persons using a mobile applicationfor assessing mental health compared to persons using an analogue assessment method.

The purpose of this Bachelor thesis is to examine how user-friendly the OPAC of the Märsta public library is considered to be.Theoretical basis are HCI and Allwoods definition of usability. Issues are: Is the OPAC suited to its task? Is the OPAC user-friendly? How well does a user accept the OPAC? and What degree of competence is shown by users of the OPAC? The source material consists of six interviews in the form of .avi files. The method I have chosen is qualitative semi-structured interview form. The result is that, based on Carl Martin Allwood?s defini-tion and with exception for the using of help-resources, the usability of Märsta?s library OPAC can be considered less good..

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to perform a user oriented evaluation of the International Library?s website. The questions posed in this study are; for what purpose do the users in this study turn to the International Library?s website; what does the users information searching process consist of when visiting the site; how does navigation, layout and content effect the users satisfaction with the website; do the users in this study consider that the International Library?s website can be improved and if so, how? The study was performed with a user oriented approach where six qualitative interviews with librarians who use the website were conducted. These interviews were analysed using Brenda Dervin?s Sense making-theory and Leclercq?s theory about user satisfaction.

The purpose of this essay is to identify how the drug user is portrayed in motion pictures. My main questions are: How is the drug use described? How is the male and female drug user depicted? How may the movies contribute to the construction, reproduction and change of gender? The method I use in my research is a qualitative, selective discourse- analysis of a number of movies prominently portraying drug use. A gender perspective is also applied on this paper.The main result of the study is that I have found that the great majority of the analyzed films portray drug use as means for something else. Drug use is often portrayed in the beginning as heavenly but changes to be depicted as problematic.

Bakgrund och problemformulering - Vi har valt att studera och analysera i vilket avseende det sker user innovation på ett forum skapat av företaget Salesforce. Forumet är ett brand community för användare som utvecklar Salesforce tjänster. Frågeställningarna behandlar om det sker olika typer av user innovation och vad det är som driver användarna till att innovera på det forum vi har valt att studera. Vår studie syftar till att bidra med en bredare kunskap och förståelse kring ämnet då det finns begränsad forskning kring user innovation inom online brand communities idag.Teori - Begreppet brand communities förklaras utifrån Muniz och O?Guinns (2001) synsätt som innebär att ett online brand community är en samlingsplats på internet dedikerat till ett specifikt varumärke.

There is an increasing demand for information literacy, which is mirrored in curriculum throughout the whole educational system. This, in turn, has brought forward a growing need for librarians who can teach. But do librarians possess pedagogical competence, and if they do, how is this ability used in everyday library practice? The aim of this study is to investigate librarians' conceptions of the pedagogical role, as it is expressed in their didactic interaction with the users. The research questions focus on librarians' experiences of teaching information seeking and use and their activities in this respect.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine the contemporary educational tasks of the Swedish public library as they manifest in Swedish library journals. Our main question at issue is: Which educational discourses are there? And in relation to our main question: how do the concepts of information literacy, lifelong learning and adult education relate to each other? Is there an antagonism between the public library's duty to supply fiction as opposed to non-fiction? and: What are the consequences of these discourses in the service provided by the library?Our theoretical starting-point is the discourse theory as proposed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. We analyse 39 texts from four Swedish library journals: Ikoner, bis, DIK-forum and Biblioteksbladet. The analysis is done in two phases.

People with disabilities constitute a big group of Internet users. Due to great advances in adaptive technology for people with disabilities more and more disabled will have access to Internet. For that reason it is extremely important for a web developer to be aware of different disabilities that complicate or prevent using Internet, different adaptive technologies that facilitate using Internet and different methods, both in design and programming, that make Internet accessible for people with disabilities.In this report we have dealt with three problems:? Which types of disabilities that complicate or prevent using Internet?? Which types of adaptive technologies are available concerning using Internet?? How can a web developer or programmer increase the accessibility to Internet for people with disabilities?To investigate how disabled people use adaptive technologies and which difficulties they experience when using Internet we have interviewed people with various types of disabilities..

Prosthetic leg can give a negative psychological effect to the user, which ends up in decreased self-esteem and that the user hides his handicap. xCover gives a more natural volume and a cool look. xCover changes the look of the prosthetic leg C-leg. The product is constructed by us, Patrik Svensson and Magnus Zetterqvist, for Christoffer Lindhe at Lindhextend AB. Christoffer has hired Martin Bergman at Smedjan 17 to make the design.

The object of this study is to examine the effective functionality of an OPAC-system while a few participants interacted with the catalogue. I?ve used Carl Martin Allwood?s (1998) four designed usability factors to be able to estimate the effective functionality of the online catalogue. Theoretic basis is Human Computer Interaction together with Allwood?s four defined usability factors.

The study presented here is about how to make the special needs user who has a profound intellectual disability and additional disabilities more involved in their implementation plan. Based on a life story interview the study aims at analyzing perceptions of procedures to enhance special needs users? influence. The method used in this study was a qualitative research approach as an overall approach in order to use a narrative method where life history is the method. The focus has been to study a part of an individual life history - a specific domain in the life of the interviewee?s working career.

AbstractAbout 160 000 persons living inSwedensuffer from some form of dementia. Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia and affects mostly people in the age of 65 and older. People with some form of dementia have memory problems and may even have other problems as aphasia and behavioral disorders. This may lead to communication problems and difficulties for the people around them. The number of demented people is increasing; it is therefore important to study methods for communication in order to improve the wellbeing for people with dementia.

AbstractIn this thesis we aim to extend the current theories about a concept called persona. A persona is a model of a user, mostly based on qualitative research and made with such accuracy that it to some extent can be used as a replacement of a real user in a development process and as a communicative tool. We will present a way of constructing this persona without meeting the actual users and follow up with interviews from the organization using them. This will lead to a model over the process of introducing personas as a concept in an organization,previously not familiar with the concept. The model is adapted to also work for projects and organizations where the concept is already known..