This study deals with the Swedish public library in our changeable time. New technology, an altered media situation with a growing digitalization, globalization and a society focusing on the individual and the market have put the public library in a new, indistinct position. It is described as facing an identity crisis. The aim of this thesis is to, by interviewing a group of young people ages 15-16, find out what the public library is for this user group and what it ought to be according to them. How do they value the services provided by the public library? Are there services they miss? The thesis also aims at relating the opinions of the young people to earlier research.

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.

The hydropower from Nissan River is of national interest and produces annually 230 GWh from the twelve power stations in the main flow. For modified waters a consideration between the power production and the biological values has to be made. This reports serves as a pre-study for Nissans Vattenråd. It tries to evaluate some of the biological values in the Nissan basin and map the power production in the area. And the size and value of lost power production from new fishways for the twelve stations in the main flow.The investment of new fishways is calculated using simplified templates with values from the business.

Denna explorativa studie analyserar gemensamma och differentiella mönster för kommunikation och beteende hos användare i Hjälpforum. Målet med studien är att kartlägga aktiva användartyper med syfte att ge SVT kunskap om Hjälpforumets användare. Om forumadministratörer har mer kunskap om användarna i Hjälpforum kan de anpassa sin kommunikation utifrån användarnas individuella behov och öka deras förmåga att bidra med mer kvalitativ återkoppling. Detta kan i sin tur bidra till en positivare inställning och ökat förtroende hos användare i Hjälpforum. I denna studie kunde fem användartyper kartläggas i Hjälpforum med stöd av egen empiri och tidigare forskning.

The problem being examined is the disturbing noise that is created in an open plan office on a company working with a creative process, such as a newspaper or a communications agency. The purpose of this study was to examine the needs for today for a sound absorber in open offices and create and design a design proposal. The aim is also to develop a marketing material the product proposal. The problem has been broken down into the following questions:- How does the user look at the need of a sound absorber in an open offices solution today?- Does an interior designer apply sound absorbers when they furnish the intended environment? - How can a design that meets the needs that exists be achieved and to speak the user?The study is based on three choice of methods a literature review on selected topics that relate to the topic, an interview with an interior designer to explore how an interior designer applies absorbers in open plan office and finally an extensive survey that treats the user's needs and appropriate appearance for the product proposal.The design process has undertaken the following methods, design brief, requirements specification, functional analysis and sketches to produce the final product proposal.

New technological innovations like tablets and smartphones have a taken significant market share on the web and puts new demands on webpages, the user interface and compatibility among different client devices. The full test of a web-based system prior to the publication is often regarded as an important part of the process to create a complete and successful website. This bachelor thesis investigates the possibility to analyze mobile-adapted web sites using a system that first records the visitor's activities and then replays them for an expert analyst to provide valuable information to developers about how their site can be improved.The essay begins with a litterature study on today's most common web development tools and then examines the possibility to apply them during the development of the analysis tool. The work also describes two methods, pair programming and waterfall method used during the project. Three different evaluation methods are presented and one of the models is applied on the finished system.The project results in a web-based analysis tool written mainly in JavaScript using the jQuery library.

The work as a personal assistant is sometimes associated with certain problems. Studies have shown that personal assistants often experience indistinct rules and roles concerning what should or should not be included in their duties. This study was undertaken to evaluate problems associated with the profession as a personal assistant, how widespread they are and how they are dealt with. Specifically, the study evaluates if the personal assistants have to do duties that they consider they are not assigned to do. Different roles (formal as informal) are also discussed which may be of current interest in this study, but also how we see people on basis of ethics and moral.

Umeå University currently uses two Course Management System, Moodle and Sakai (Cambro). Both Moodle and Sakai are based on open source code and are today the two more popular choices among Swedish Universities. They both have different strengths and weaknesses both from a technical perspective and a user perspective. This can create problems for a course responsible/teacher when it comes to planning the course structure at a distance course but also when planning the course structure on a campus course that uses a Course Management System. With this as my starting point my formulations of questions become:How do the Course Management Systems that Umeå University uses differs, both from a technical perspective and user perspective?What possibilities is there in the Course Management Systems to use a different Course Structure?Is there a noticeable difference on the view of Course Management System of teachers and students at different departments?The purpose with my essay is to create a basis that course responsible/teacher can use to plan the course structure.

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.

In visual programming the developer specifies her code, using visual tools. Within the range of visual programming languages lay icon-based languages, form-based languages, and diagram languages.Mediator is a multimedia authoring tool that allows the user to create interactive CD-ROM presentations, dynamic HTML pages and Flash projects, without any coding or scripting. The user can create interactivity in her project, using event driven and icon-based visual programming, through a ?drag and drop? user interface. This report intends to determine some of the qualifications of a tool of this kind, as well as its limitations.The report is based on a case study, in which a smaller software application was to be updated using Mediator 9.

An increasingly globalized market is leading to hard competition among manufacturing companies, which means that they are forced to become more customer focused to survive in the market. A Customer Relationship Management system is a system that will be of assistance to help companies succeed in building long term relationships with their customers. Best of Breed and ERP-based are two types of CRM systems. The study has focused on analyzing and examine the need for CRM systems at manufacturing companies. Our question formulation has been:? What need do businesses want to satisfy with a Best of Breed-based and ERP-based CRM system?? Are there any differences in the use of Best of Breed-based and ERP-based CRM system?In this study, we have chosen to carry out interviews and quantitative surveys with manufacturing companies to get their view of CRM-systems.

Skeuomorphism är ett relativt nytt begrepp inom interaktionsdesign.Skeuomorphism är en designstil vars mål är att efterlikna realistiska objekt för attframkalla och skapa vissa effekter och upplevelser, som till exempel attunderförstått kommunicera en förståelse till användaren. Litteraturstudien visadepå att ingen har undersökt hur användare upplever inslagen och effekter somutlovas är spekulationer. Denna uppsats undersöker hur användare upplever inslagav skeuomorphism i digitala gränssnitt. Studien utfördes med hjälp av metodernathink-aloud och intervjuer för att besvara frågan, ?Hur upplever användare inslag avskeuomorphism i digitala grafiska gränssnitt??.

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..

The question of direct citizen participation in politics and administration is a contestable one. Its proponents claim that it has positive consequences even for the more "traditional", representative democracy, since participation leads to an increased political knowledge and increased political interest, and thus creates a revitalised democracy. Critical voices have however been raised to the validity of this claim. Critics have also pointed out direct participation as problematic, because it leads to problems of political inequality: a difference of political influence between ? on the one hand, the citizens participating directly and those that restrict their political participation to voting, and ? on the one the other hand ? between the institutions, for example schools, that employ, and don?t employ this method of direct citizen influence.In this essay, these two points of criticisms are tested in the context of user-boards in elementary and secondary schools.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka vad som kännetecknar en användarvänlig webbsida och om www.atg.se har lyckats attrahera sin målgrupp. Min forskningsfråga var: Har www.atg.se lyckats attrahera sin mest prioriterade målgrupp och få de att öka sitt spel på webbsidan på grund av webbsidans design och användbarhet?För att en webbsida ska vara användbar för en användare måste den tillföra ett värde till an-vändaren, något som användaren har nytta av. För att webbsida ska vara användarvänlig krävs att den är lätt att använda. Att anpassa sin webbsida efter användarna kan vara svårt eftersom det som alla målgrupper har gemensamt är att de är människor och människor tänker och tolkar saker väldigt olika.