The aim of this study is to examine some teachers and assistants? perception of conditions for students? democratic participation in the compulsory school for learning disabilities specialization training school. In order to deepen and more clearly describe the purpose of the study, three issues have been selected. Firstly, how do teachers and assistants perceive the concept of participation? Secondly, how do teachers and assistants perceive students opportunities for participation in teaching? And finally, do teachers and assistants perceive students? opportunities for participation in democratic activities of school? It is a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews.

The web has evolved much through the years. From being a place where author and reader were clearly distinguished, it now invites everyone to take part in the development of both content and technology. Social services are central in what is called Web 2.0. Wikis, blogs and folksonomies are all examples of how the users and their communities are key to the development of services. Collaborative writing, tags and API:s are central.

High demands are set on all equipment used in emergency service work, where small margins can be the distinguishing factor between life and death during a rescue operation. It is important that tools such as ladders quickly and easily can be dismounted from a vehicle and still satisfy the regulatory requirements for securing loads during transport. The existing solution for getting ladders down from the roof of a fire engine requires a large manual effort from the user in an ergonomically unsound posture.In this degree project a new ladder holder is developed with focus on the user to solve the ergonomic problems and at the same time create a more compact design that can be adapted to several different types of ladders. After an initial pre-study with user-interviews and measurement of forces and distances a set of requirements was formulated that came to govern the project's direction. Creative methods were used to generate concepts that improved the function and through design solutions, calculations and testing in CAD a base for manufacturing of a new product was created.The result is a completely new type of ladder holder that minimizes the user's manual effort and simplifies the securing of ladders in the holder.

This paper deals with how people use public libraries. An attempt is made to distinguishbetween different user groups on the basis of how they use the library. The roles of thelibrary in relation to its users are also discussed.The paper is based on a user study with the cooperation of 195 users. The user studywas carried out at the Public Library of Alingsås 1994. As material for comparisonsimilar studies from Sweden, but even from Denmark, have been used.

The purpose of this Master's thesis is to examine whether a web-based library catalogue is to be considered user-friendly. We have examined this from a user-perspective by interviewing users of a web-based catalogue at a public library. In order to get a picture of the user-friendliness of a catalogue, the thesis is centred upon the following questions: How is a web-based catalogue used? What problems do the users experience? How is the catalogue perceived by its users? Since the producers of these catalogues now are taking into account the research upon human-computer interaction, we are also interested in finding out whether a web-based catalogue is more user-friendly than a more traditional OPAC. We do this by comparing the results of our examination with earlier studies of OPAC use.

This bachelor thesis is about communication problems and treatment during the reference interview. The purpose was to investigate the reasons of why users? information needs are not always understood by the librarian and what to do about it. I have also investigated what kind of skills that can be useful for librarians to have and how a librarian can act in a way that makes the user feel welcome during the reference interview. The method I used was a literature study and an own study through interviews of library users.

The aim of this Master thesis is, from a sociocultural perspective, to investigate the views the teaching librarians at Södertörn University Library (SHB) have on learning, information literacy, and their own pedagogical role, and how their views affect user education and their ideas about the future of user education.The research questions used were: How do the teaching librarians view learning? How is this view reflected in their work with user education? How do the teaching librarians envisage user education in the future, and how do they work to reach that goal?Five semi-structured interviews were conducted with the teaching librarians at SHB. The interviews were then analysed using qualitative content analysis.The results of the study show that the teaching librarians at SHB share a sociocultural view on learning, and take a communicative oriented approach to user education. They believe that communication and interaction support learning, and in the classroom they stimulate discussions both between librarian and student, and between the students themselves. In the future, they hope for improved collaboration between librarians and academic staff, and that user education will become a natural element of the curriculum..

Denna kandidatuppsats undersöker hur user experience kan främjas i ett adaptivt talbaserat system i en fordonskontext. Att undersöka och involvera user experiencei adaptiva talbaserade system är i synnerhet viktigt i denna kontext då den primära sysslan, att köra, bör störas så lite som möjligt. Ett adaptivt system ger möjlighet att effektivisera interaktion och ett talbaserat system låter föraren fokusera på trafiken.Genom att undersöka existerande teori och utföra empiriska undersökningar i form av användartester genom Wizard of Oz-tekniken och intervjuer har vi skapat designoch dialogexempel. Dessa förslag kan främja user experience och på så vis bidra till att den interaktion som sker är effektiv och behaglig. .

The purpose of this thesis is to compare if a charter company's attitude and vision of service can be reconciled with the attitudes and visions that the customers have in the same area. In order to carry out the study a qualitative approach is used. The data has been collected by interviews, focus groups and observations. The framework is theories on the subject of customer satisfaction, quality of service at customer meetings, Self-Service technologies, quality assurance and gap in service.The study has concluded that the approach to service is relatively equal between the company and customers, but the future visions differ. Focus group participants have been thinking bigger and further into the future, while the company focuses more on specific functions.

Although Lean has received an increased amount of attention in the service context, research still has not established how successfully Lean manages to increase service productivity; since service productivity consists of both efficiency and quality. Research regarding productivity discusses the risk of a tradeoff between efficiency and quality in service production processes. Therefore, this thesis aims to explore if the tradeoff in a production setting with low variability in demand and low customer participation exists, after Lean has been implemented. With a qualitative approach, a case study has been conducted at Scandinavian Airlines Ground Handling to evaluate the effects of Lean in the baggage handling process. The result of the study shows that the tradeoff has not been overcome; efficiency has increased at the expense of quality.

In 1998 the Swedish Socialist Government initiated a project in order to promote economic growth and to end the discriminating social and ethnic segregation in the greater city regions of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo. One of the goals of the project was and still is to promote political participation in 24 of the poorest areas of the three cities. In a quantitative analysis I evaluate whether or not the project so far has been successful in promoting a specific part of political participation, i.e. electoral participation in communal elections. The results of the 24 poor city areas are compared with a group of 14 likewise poor city areas of major swedish cities.According to my hypothesis, general improvements of the socio-economic status of poor city areas ought to generate positive effects on electoral participation in communal elections.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine reviewswritten by users in library online catalogs, online bookstoresand on the web community LibraryThing, in order todetermine whether there are any differences in the way usersreview books, and whether these differences might explainwhy libraries experience difficulties in getting their users toreview books. At the core of web 2.0 and library 2.0concepts lies the thought of user participation, and largerlibraries have sought to implement systems for reviewingand tagging items in the catalog in ways similar to onlinebookstores and other websites.By analyzing the contents of user reviews, however, thisthesis shows that users express themselves differentlydepending on what kinds of literature they review, and inwhat context. Most notably, user reviews of ?the Classics? orcanonized literature recognizes the high status of suchliterature, while users reviewing popular fiction expressthemselves in a way that admits that the reviewed titles areconsidered less valuable. There are also signs that booksreviewed at online bookstores are seen as products ormerchandise, while the reviews at the library to a greaterdegree treat the books as works of literature.The conclusion reached in this thesis suggests that there maybe a relation between the image of the library as a defenderof high culture and the perceived status of literary works,causing users to become hesitant to review books, feelingthat they do not have the knowledge to describe or reviewthem ?correctly?..

The Swedish school law says that students who need special education should have all the support they need to reach the qualification that is set up. The arrangements have to be written down in an Individual education plan (IEP). Before the IEP is set up there has to be an investigation about what kind of support and measures the student needs to reach the qualification that is set up. The aim of this study is to examine student?s participation in school and in the progress with their own IEP.I have accomplished a qualitative study by interviewing eight students during the letter part in the nine-year school.

Since companies have realised the importance of customer loyalty and since the service sector has gained higher significance in recent years, we found it interesting to study what leads to customer loyalty in service companies. The theories we have chosen to consider are customer loyalty, service quality, service guarantees, affinity marketing, loyalty programmes and customer clubs, the customer in focus and other factors that influences customer loyalty. To find out how service companies are working with cus- tomer loyalty, we have conducted a case study within three service companies. Our findings are that customer loyalty has a significant importance for the companies we studied. Quality and personnel were the factors we found had the greatest impact in service companies concerning customer loyalty.

The security solutions used in wireless home networks are examined in this report. Thegrowing number of wireless units have increased the need for reliable security solutions.This report aims to enlighten the reader about the fundamental technology used inwireless security solutions and inform about the existing flaws. A recommendationabout how to achieve a high level of security in the home network is also given to thereader.Several flaws in the security solutions in use have been reported. Of these the mostsevere has been examined in a test network using highly accessible tools to get aperception of how vulnerable the user is.The tests showed that several attacks were efficient and easily carried out. We have alsoseen that several of the home networks in our sample are susceptible to these attacks.Our survey revealed that the Internet service provider's technical support in many caseslacked the knowledge necessary to inform the user about reliable security solutions..