Studies have shown that user participation is a good method when improving or developing a product. The method gives a company insight in what the customer wants and needs. It has also been shown that user participation benefits all parts included. For example, it creates a greater relationship with customers than most other methods do. Webportals is one of the most interactive systems online and it gives companies a unique chance to improve and maintain their relationship with customers.

Author: Gabriella Agné and Helena LarssonTitle: Disability policy program ? a case study of a municipals implementation of UNs Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.Supervisor: Marianne Westring-NordhAssessor: Ulf DruggeThis study aims to examine how a small municipal in southern Sweden works with the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and examine the assistant officers knowledge about this work and user organizations inclusion and user involvement.The study operates from a qualitative approach based on the results of nine semi-structured interviews with local politicians, assistance officers and representatives from three different user organizations.The results show that the municipal has chosen to work with the implementation of the convention by creating policy programs for their departments through dialogue with user organizations, and by mapping the accessibility to public places. The results also show that the assistant officers have been given no information regarding the convention or the policy programs from their employers and instead operate from national legislations and prepositions. The user organizations feel that they were initially included in the process, but that their impact has later been removed due to structural reorganization..

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 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.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to study howuniversity librarians in a South African context relate to theconcept of information literacy. We investigated differencesand similarities in approaches to user education andinformation literacy. We have based our study on thefollowing research questions: What are the prerequisites foruser education at the University of the Western Cape? Howdo these prerequisites influence librarians' approaches toinformation literacy and user education at the University ofthe Western Cape? We have used a sociocultural theoreticalperspective and Hofstede's cultural dimensions in orderto pay particular attention to the cultural and social contextof user education.

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..

The Mobile phone has contributed to massive changes in the way that human beings communicate with each other and is a technology that is a part of society?s globalization. Opinions differ in the area of user interface where some feel that mobile phones exclude users such as senior citizens or users with an intellectual or a physical disability.Universal Design ??design for all?, is a vision that intends to bring about settings, products and services that suits as many people as possible irrespective of an individual?s needs and prospects. The criteria for ?design for all? are among other things flexibility, user friendliness, comprehensibility and a high tolerance for mistakes.The purpose of this essay is to investigate the mobile phones graphic user-interface from the theory of a universal design.

Uppkomsten av dagens Web 2.0 har skapat möjligheter till större interaktivitet hos användarna. Denna utveckling har även följts av en möjlighet att skapa användargenererat innehåll, ett fenomen som benämns User Generated Content (UGC). En av de viktigaste aspekterna inom UGC är att det måste uppnå en god användbarhet, men likväl måste tjänsterna också erbjuda en rik subjektiv upplevelse. Denna subjektiva upplevelse benämns som User Experience och är ett uttryck för den upplevelse och tillfredställelse en användare känner då den ställs inför ett interaktivt gränssnitt. Syftet med uppsatsen var att identifiera User Experience av UGC-tjänster.

The aim of this study is to get a deeper understanding about user tests as well as answer the question about if testing for users is necessary at all times. I've done a comparison between what the literature says, and what a company says, about testing. The tests that's been in focus in this study is prototyping and card sorting tests. Prototyping aims to give the developer feedback about the design and check if there are any obvious problems with the design. A card sorting test can be used to get input about how information architecture should be constructed.

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.

AbstractThis study examines the technologies appropriate in developing back-and solutions for search-driven user interfaces of e-commerce sites. The study is based on existing research in search-driven user interfaces of e-commerce sites from a design point of view, but instead the focus of this study lies within a back-end perspective. This choice of focus is a result of the gap that was encountered within research and other literature when it comes to general advice in how e-commerce sites best should build back-end solutions to support search driven user interfaces. The technologies that have been examined and compared are traditional relational databse management systems (RDMS) and the newer so called No-SQL database management systems, and also traditional search engines and the newer variant s of search engines. The study concludes that in some cases it is appropriate to combine traditional and newer technologies when it comes to databases, while the comparison of search engines indicates that there are some newer search en gines that have the ability to meet more of the needs that can be identified on the back-end solutions.Primary data consists of interviews made ?face to face? with experts on the subject and questionnaires addressed to selected e-commerce companies via e-mail.

In the library community there is a continuous discussion about enhancing user interactivity on library websites, according to the principles of Web 2.0, called Library 2.0. The purpose of this thesis is to study how librarians conceive Library 2.0. The focus is on the study of the librarians? conceptions of user interactivity on the website, and if the librarians conceive that their professional role is affected by Library 2.0. The study is implemented methodologically by interviewing six librarians and using phenomenography as an approach.

The outset of this thesis is to raise questions on how we design for the mobile context and the capabilities of smartphones. Not only the presentation but also the use of input and interaction between a service and a user.This work evolves around sign up forms and answers the question: How does the sign up process affect the holistic perspective of a digital service regarding usability and user experience? This thesis consists of a case studies, and design experiments conducted on Twitter, Instagram and Randos sign up processes to explore if and how the usability, and the user experience could be affected and im- proved.This concluded some important aspects to be considered when designing sign up forms for a digital service.The usability, and the user experience is not only affected by user interaction, and the choice of input method but it?s also affected by which data the service is requesting, and more important; if that data is motivated to request by the service..

This thesis contains a usability evaluation of ?Barnplay?, a Swedish video-on-demand service targeted at children. The objective of the study was to identify usability issues in the video service and to develop measures on improving the user interface, with special focus on adaptation to the broad target group of 3-11 year olds.The study was conducted by first mapping established practices in designs of VOD-services targeted at children, followed by interviews and usability tests with children between 2-11 concerning their use of ?Barnplay?. Based on the initial data collection, a prototype was developed and then evaluated by usability testing and A/B-testing.The main conclusion of the study is the need of better individual adjustment of the video content selection to better appeal to different age segments within the target group.

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.