The aim of this thesis is to define digital library, and to investigate a relation between the construction of a digital library and user needs. The main questions to be answered are: 1 What criteria was used when constructing a digital library, particularly concerning issues like purpose, function, design, supply, services, resources and future development of the digital library? 2 How do the digital library system designers and system builders criteria correspond with those of postgraduate researchers? And what factors affect the use? A digital library is an enterprise that gives access to information stored digitally and directly available on the net. The crucial is that the enterprise has a control over collection of information and responsibility to make it available to a defined group of users. In order to investigate the relation between the construction of the digital library and user needs, I have interviewed five key people involved with the work with the digital library and twenty postgraduate researchers from the Gothenburg University.

This thesis of 15 hp has been implemented at Halmstad University, in collaboration with Saab Dynamics in Linköping. Saab Dynamics is a company operating in the defence industry where competition is tough. This necessitates new ways to increase efficiency in the company, which is the basis for this thesis. Saab Dynamics wants to introduce simulation driven design. Since Saab Dynamics engineers have little experience of simulation, required a user methodology with clear guidelines.

This field study examined how elderly and cognitively disabled people used and experienced a social companion robot. The following pages explores the questions: Which are the physical, social and affective qualities during the interaction? The aim was to through observations see how qualities of interaction could activate different forms of behavior. The results show that motion, sound and the eyes together created communicative and emotional changes for users who felt joy and were willing to share the activity with others. The robot stimulated to some extent users to create their own imaginative experiences but often failed to involve user or group for a long time and was also considered too large and heavy to handle..

In the future network-based Swedish Defence (NBD), attaining information superiority will be of great importance. This will be achieved by a network of networks where decision-makers, information- and weapon-systems are linked together. As a part of the development of NBD, we have performed a study of user interface design for a future network-based tool package for analysis of sensor systems, referred to as the C2SR-system. This thesis was performed at Ericsson Microwave Systems AB, Sensor and Information Networks, during the autumn 2002. A pre-study concerning the requirements of usability, trustworthiness and functionality of a user interface for the C2SR-system was performed.

SJ is a government-owned passenger train operator in Sweden. SJ currently uses asystem called Ford for control and monitoring of maintenance. Technical andorganizational factors have given Ford the character of a monolithic system withoutflexibility and conditions to meet SJ's increased requirements.The main purpose of this master's thesis is to investigate how data quality can bedefined at SJ and to examine the data quality in Ford. This will give SJ an indication ofwhat their quality efforts should focus on in the future.The technical data quality parameters found are: accuracy, timeliness, completenessand consistency. The user centred data quality parameters are: accessibility,understandability and reliability.

The purpose of this essay is to function as a guide in the future development of the Umeå University Library?s webbsite by examining its users? web experiences as well as their web surfing behaviours. In this essay, a number of opinions in usability and accessibility coming from writers and organisations are presented. Using the writers? theories and previous research, along with the results from the evalutation, the essay attempts to explain the behaviour of users when they get in touch with technology, aswell as what the web users perceive as user friendly.

The mission was to create a prototype of a menu system for the companySystem Andersson AB. The instructions were that it has to be as interesting andmodern now as in 20 years. We had to look at technology from the cutting edgeof development to make our prototype survive in the future. WindowsPresentation Foundation (WPF) was the technique we focused on. There areonly a few applications that take advantage of WPF today, but it is predictedthat WPF will be the next generation method for developing applications to theWindows platform.To make our menu visually appealing, easy to use and at the same timefunctional, we followed the clear path and guidelines that are available ininteraction design.

This master project in landscape architecture is named Interactivation Design - places for social imagination and conversation in Lindängelund. There are two main purposes of this thesis the first being to bring forth a study of interactivity implemented in the subject of landscape architecture. The second purpose of this thesis is to present a proposal to design a confluent landscape weaving together the upcoming botanical garden of Lindängelund and the residential area of Almvik, both situated in southern Malmö, Sweden, and also weaves people and their experiences together. This project may be described as investigative and experimentative reaserch by design.The first part of this project, Interactivation, is consisting of a theoretical report which discusses different ways of approaching when, how and why we interact in public space. Literature studies in for example space, placemaking, social life, people, participation and Japanese emptiness concepts has been undertaken to gain knowledge in the aim to create interactive landscape design.The second part, Context and Design Proposal, introduces the project context area of Southern Fosie in Malmö which consists of different kinds of residential areas, people of different nationalities and a large building site for a botanical garden and recreational area.

The company Microshop is interested in implementing new features in their product-website, and would like to examine the possibility and usefulness of introducing such functionality. When designing interaction for commercial websites, it is important to make the menus easy to use, and refrain from using deep hierarchies in order to avoid causing unnecessary burden for the users. There is an interest among users for adaptive functionality, but this requires great amounts of trust in the website from the user. Something which can be created by refraining from using implicit information, and provide detailed explanations throughout the website. A usability test was conducted in order to complement the data gathered from the theoretical study, the interviews and the expert evaluations.

During spring 2001 we have been involved with our bachelor thesis at Doberman Digital Agency, an Internet related webdesign company. We have focused our work on the registration process via digital medias such as the Internet. During our workprocess we have been conducting a number of studies and analyses of workrelated materials. Ethnographical methods such as structured interviews and participant observations were primarily used in our work. We also widely used brainstorming in our designprocess.

Safety, its a word not commonly associated with elderly people living alone. There is however a device that is supposed to bring safety, and enable elderly people to continue living in their present household - an emergency dialer. However these devices does not serve their own purpose in terms of design. Thepurpose of this study is to create an emergency dailer that everybody would want to put on their wrist or bedside table. The market for these devices have looked the same for the last twentyfive years, despite of society´s advancements in both design and technology.

This study has researched how user click heatmaps and eye tracking can be utilized in usability testing. We have used the tools SessionCam and Tobii. We designed a website for a small clothing store and conducted usability tests, in order to evaluate the users clicks and eye movements in relation to design choices on the website. The aim of this study was to research how these tools can be integrated in usability testing and how results from the tests can be used to improve usability. We were able to use the recordings of clicks and eye movements and make design changes based on the findings.

The purpose of the project was to design an electric bicycle to offer thetarget group youth an attractive alternative to mopeds. The basis for theproject was user studies in which young people were interviewed andobserved in their daily environment.The project resulted in a product, designed with the focus of integratingthe battery to the shape, to create a wholeness that is simple andintuitive.!The product is easy to use and operate, with an automatic transmissionengine.! A smart modular system allows the user to choose design withmudguards, rear rack, or without. The battery design is based on "cradleto-cradle" to maximize the battery life and minimize environmentalimpacts.It was very fun and rewarding to have the opportunity to present theresults for the youth who showed great interest in the product.The project was conducted in collaboration with Designit and Cycleurope..

This thesis of 15 hp has been implemented at Halmstad University, in collaboration with Saab Dynamics in Linköping. Saab Dynamics is a company operating in the defence industry where competition is tough. This necessitates new ways to increase efficiency in the company, which is the basis for this thesis. Saab Dynamics wants to introduce simulation driven design. Since Saab Dynamics engineers have little experience of simulation, required a user methodology with clear guidelines.

The flow of information in road vehicles intensifies as new techniques develop. Informationsources such as cell phones, navigation equipment and radios demand the driver?s attentionwhile he or she must stay focused on the road to perform a safe driving. Today the visualinformation inside the vehicle is mostly located on the dashboard, which forces the driver tolook down when shifting attention between the environment outside and the informationinside the vehicle. One way to avoid this is to useHead-up Display (HUD), a technique thatprojects information in the visual field of the user.This master thesis has been performed in cooperation with Scania CV AB, a world leadingtruck producer.