This report describes the initial work intended for updating the car sharing service Roadmate. Roadmate is one of the services received by the car rental company Hertz First Rent a Car. The goal was to present the client with design- and structure proposals for a car sharing service that includes high usability and at the same time remains aesthetically pleasing.The work is based on an initial study with data collection, mapping the target user group and its needs. Subsequent structural and design proposals for Roadmates company carpooling service are based on the facts surrounding the target group's needs. The result are well developed and tested design sketches with accompanying visual identity and sitemaps that can be the basis for the further work on the development of the service..

The goal of this project was to create a web-based, crowd-sourced, correlational database, that easily allowed users to submit objects and receive correlated objects as results. The webservice was created in the web development languages of HTML, CSS, PHP and Javscript, with MySQL to handle the database. Simultaneous development was kept in check with the aid of the source code management system GIT. Upon completion, the service contained several HTML-views, the ability to add and rate objects, a per-object dedicated page with information parsed from Wikipedia.org, and a view with objects ranked in accordance to the preferences specific to the current user. Roughly a month after the beginning of development, the website was publicly launched and promoted in order to collect data, and improvements were added to the website as needed.

This is a master thesis from Uppsala University in collaboration with B Locket AB (more known as www.blocket.se). B Locket AB is a large ad-company from Sweden, located in Stockholm.Search engines on the market today are becoming more and more complex. When they were first introduced, they only had one function and that was to produce search results containing the string that the user had typed. Today, users want it to be able to spellcheck, produce more results and sort search results on specific fields as well. Preferably, all these features should not affect the performance as a whole.The reason to why these demands have come up is that users are getting more and more used to internet services as a whole and they want everything to be as easy as possible.The user ability has become a substantially more important area in the computer industry and this needs to be taken into account when it comes to B Locket AB and its search engine.

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..

In the spring of 2009 Silva Sweden AB was contacted for a collaboration within the scope of a MasterThesis project. The company had discussed the possibility to develop a device that monitors usermovement during different types of exercise. The objective of this Master Thesis has therefore been todevelop and design a multi training device that records the user?s physical performance during severalactivities. The purpose of the thesis project has been to use scientific methods for product development inorder to design a multi device that supplements Silva?s range of products.The project followed a product development process divided into four phases; Market Analysis, ConceptCreation, Concept Development and Construction.

This report is written for a consultant networking company with the purpose to review the development ofthe company's remote connections from a user friendly and security perspective.This includes an investigation of the possibilities to consolidate existing authentication methods foraccessing customers. The problem lies in the amount of methods being used. Through case study wefound that smart cards, SMS-service, software and hardware tokens exist.The only method feasible from a security perspective is smart cards. Since the method is not commonlyused by the company's customers a standardization of it would be counterproductive.Also, the purpose of this report is to investigate how the ongoing internal development of the remoteconnection will affect the company's clients. Within this framework we have also verified a designsuggestion.We interpret, after the completion of the case study, that the internal development of the remoteconnection is marginally affected by legal perspectives.

In the gaming industry, it has long been popular to combine genres with the aim ofcreating games that bring together the best of several worlds. However, there are stillmany unexplored combinations with good potential.This report addresses the planning and development of a game prototype that combinestwo game genres, turn-based and real-time strategy. In addition to presenting the results,the report also discusses the di culties that were encountered and how they were handled.The prototype contains a working combat system and a basic AI. The prototype ismodular, which means that it is easy for an end user to extend the game with extra content.Most elements that were considered important from the two genres were implemented, butthere is still room for improvement and further development.The result is evaluated by means of quality assurance, a process that is commonly usedin the gaming industry. The response has been generally positive, which indicates thatthe combination has potential and should be explored further..

The transition from paper to electronic journals in induces a major change in academic libraries. The library must focus on customising the service to meet user needs in order to compete with other actors on the market. This situation entails the need for a marketing and management approach in library organisations. Linda Ashcroft has in previous research focused on marketing of electronic journals. She has stated the importance of simplifying the user environment of electronic journals and the importance of regaining control over electronic journals from publishers and vendors.

This project is about development of virtual drums for iPhone and iPad. The project aims to provide the company Toontrack AB with a good foundation to build drumbased apps. The focus has been on getting a quick response when playing and that user interfaces should be easy to use, intuitive and customizable. The result is impressive and both audio and graphics are of excellent quality thanks to good collaboration with Toontrack, that previously has developed drum-based software. The drum kit offers a variety of articulations and even the ability to play various dynamics, although the screens are not pressure sensitive..

The goal of this work has been to create a flexible strategic group-based artificial intelligence for the Arrowhead Game Studios-game Magicka, by implementing, using and examining different AI-techniques that's used in many commercial games in more or less extent. C# is the programming language that has been used in the development, and the implementation has been made as flexible as possible to make further development and extending AI-rules etc. easier..

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.

In relation to the development of IT-products it is very important that the software supplier is aware not only of the target group but also the field of application. Usability should characterize the whole IT-design process as, in relation to this context, design includes more than merely those aspects which are visible to and thus can be interpreted by the naked eye. The study examines the specific qualities and properties that substantiate the usability and the demands that a customer rightfully expects from an IT-product. The user and the customer are highlighted in the same context in order to demonstrate that it is through the customer that an IT-product is defined as being useful. Thus, from this perspective, the user and customer can be considered as being the same person.

Digital artefacts such as smartphones have become an intricate part of our daily lives both private and professionally. They have evolved from doing simple tasks to become a form of expression, as well as acting as a gateway to the digital world of connections. We rely on various technology such as Wi-Fi networks to connect with others. They in turn have become more available and today, many establishments offer free network to their customers. With these developments comes different kind of risks for the user.

We live in a stressful world and a demanding society where the ability to quickly adapt is one of the most important and most difficult challenges of today. A fairly new phenomenon called intranets has evolved to meet this challenge, however many examples of corporative intranets are stories about failures and systems with poor usability. This study focuses on how the user oriented approach to systems design affected upon a system development process of an Intranet, solely developed within a company, and how it impacts on the intranets popularity among the employees in the company. The study starts not from the literature but from a survey, which is based upon the Delphi method. Which results were used for further in-depth research about the subject, by interviewing three representatives from the company.

In this Bachelor Thesis (20 p.), we present the history and development of "Intelligent Houses", and most important- explore some of the future possibilities in this area. The project has been carried out through an interdisciplinary cooperation between three different educations at the Blekinge Institute of Technology. By conducting a dialogue with various actors with different professions, we have been trying to identify needs within the concept of "Intelligent Houses", were the end user is not only the tenant or homeowner. Through Participatory Design methods, such as a Future Workshop, we have brought the users together to discuss their own and each others needs and hindrances in their respective work practice, and how intelligent house technology could improve their work conditions. We have also been testing a highly sophisticated CO/CO2/Moisture/Temperature/Enthalpy multi-sensor & controller, originally developed for regulating indoor climate systems. Based on the needs we have found in our fieldwork, we have been looking at possibilities to make multi user solutions with the sensor..