This report describes the development of an application in collaboration with Designingenjörerna AB. The company has worked for a long time with a community platform and they required an application where users can create their own unique profile representations, called Avatar Creator. An Avatar Creator is computer based application, which makes it possible to create a virtual character. The problem area behind this is that, large websites require a lot of administrative work when people upload profile pictures on different community pages. They can contain abusive material or pictures of other people rather than those who created the profile.The questions in this report are, how can an Avatar Creator help user to get a unique profile of himself? What are the advantages and disadvantages of an Avatar Creator? How to create a user-friendly application?To understand how an Avatar Creator works and get ideas to create an application, exiting Avatar Creators were reviewed on the Web.Collaborative work with Designingenjörerna AB was done to pin down the requirements for the Avatar creator application.

The aim of this master thesis is to find out how indexing of fiction works. I look at the consistency when users? choices of index words are compared with each other and I also compare users? choices to the current indexing made by libraries. I examine the subject heading list, Att indexera skönlitteratur, to find out how well it works in this particular context. The investigation included seven users who, in three steps, are creating a subject heading index of the Swedish novel Klippdockan by Cecilia Dahlheim.

SNA Europe?s handsaw concept is called ?Bahco Handsaw System? and is constituted by a saw handle with the possibility to switch between different saw blades. The sales of ?Bahco Handsaw System? products have not achieved the desired results probably due to the high price. Developing a more cost efficient handle, enabling a lower consumer price of the product, is assumed to increase the sales volume.

This thesis is about Fristadstorget in the city of Eskilstuna and how the square flow together with the user orientation could be improved. This work focuses on how public spaces best satisfy users through architecture, cognition and information interpretation. I've looked at people's movement patterns in Fristadstorget, with the help of observation from strategic locations. While I also integrated the city?s surrounding and taking in information from already existing buildings around the square.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to survey what personal encounter at the library can signify, and to examine Swedish public libraries? policies for personal encounter. The posed questions are: What does personal encounter at the library signify? How are users and library staff represented in the collected policies? What do the policies say about digital encounter? 290 e-mail queries were sent to Swedish public libraries in May 2010. Of 140 responses, 107 stated that they did not have a written policy on personal encounter.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine virtual reading groups, and which meaning the users perceive that the virtual reading groups offer. In addition, the study inquires which details can be improved to further amend the needs and wants among the users of virtual reading groups. Through these outlines, it is discussed how libraries and librarians can make use of virtual reading groups as a resource. The study is based upon qualitative interviews, consisting of asynchronous e-mail interviews with a total of sixteen members in two different virtual reading groups.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to investigate how a public library should sign and organize their resources to make them as accessible as possible to the users of the library. Our theory, Paul Arthur?s and Romedi Passini?s wayfinding theory, is about how people search through information loaded environments. Our empirical material consists mainly of three parts: an inventory of the resources and guiding at Hammarö bibliotek, eight interviews with visitors at Hammarö bibliotek and observations of how visitors use and interact with the library, its resources and guiding.

This thesis was made possible by the company Verendus system AB, which is the leading developer of dealership management systems in the caravan and camper market. The goal of the thesis was to create a statistics module for a new producer system envisioned by Verendus. The new system is aimed at manufacturers and importers of caravans and campers, with the goal of enabling its users to create more effective production lines. By providing statistical data to mentioned users they will be able to predict market trends and customize their production lines accordingly. Today such software does not exist which leads Verendus to think that its arrival would lead to a success on the market.Before the development and design of the producer system began, a new agile method had to be developed, MAM (Minimum Agile Method).

This is a qualitative interview study of the importance of the non-verbal communication related to the reference situation at public libraries. The experiences of both librarians and users of the reference service have been explored with regards to non-verbal communication. Eight interviews have been carried out. The results reveal that the users and librarians consider that it is important that the librarian find eye contact as well as give affirmation through nodding and smiling. To demonstrate interest and involvement in the questions through attentive listening is also of great value.

The aim of this MA thesis is to examine how users regard and receive the services offered by a specific public library. We also examine what the conception of service means to the users and how they perceive this service being offered by the library. We look upon if and to what extent the service conception depends on contact with the library staff. The methods used are qualitative interviews and analyses of documents directing the library activities. The public library we have examined in this respect is the public library of Västerås.

This Masters thesis concerns computer games in Swedish public libraries. We have investigated the opinions of public librarians concerning what they think about computer games, and to what extent they believe it should be a part of the public library. The method we have chosen is qualitative interviews. The theory we have used is a pedagogical literature strategy, which we have reformulated so that it fits our investigation. The results show that the interviewed public librarians think that the library should offer computer games for children and youths to use at the library, and that they should offer computer games for lending, to all the library users.

This essay will focus on the people using and are involved in, and have a large interest in the horror film genre. The purpose of this essay is to find what urge these people to continuously watch horror movies and how they believe to be acknowledge by the society in a modern sense. Our study is mainly based on two separate interviews and therefore, mainly from the users perspective. This essay is also complemented by earlier research on this topic. In context of stigma, violence debate, exclusion we found that the users truly can be found in a rare type of alternative sphere, besides the public sphere.

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is a broad discipline that studies different concerns regarding interactive systems? development. One of the major interest points within the discipline is the reasoning behind building specific functionality into computers and the long-term effects that usage of systems will have on humans.Within Human Computer Interaction there are theories and frameworks how to involve a user in the process of developing new systems. In this paper focus is applied to the development process within developing applications for Enterprice Digital Assistants (EDA) and to what extent the end-users are involved in the process. Fazer Bageri AB has been choosen to represent a business corporation that uses handheld computers in their everyday tasks.The method used to gather information for this study has been by performing interviews and observations with key stakeholders at Fazer Bageri AB and MobiOne AB.

The purpose of this thesis is to discuss the possibilities of, and interest in, a digital download service at the music departments of the libraries. I chose to conduct my study at the city library of Gothenburg. I studied the legal download services that exist today and I did a statistical survey among the users of the music department, followed up by interviews to see how they took to the idea. From the inquiry I learned that a majority of the users was negative to having a digital service replacing the physical department, although a majority was positive to try a digital service. I also used the inquiry to compare the reasons for downloading music to the reasons for borrowing records from the library, but there was no significant difference.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the usability of the Umeå University library catalogue Album. The aim is to evaluate the catalogue in order to establish if there are any problems that could be solved by modifying the catalogue. The following questions are answered: How should a good catalogue be designed? Which problems are common when using a library catalogue? Is Album user friendly? Are there any problems that occur when using Album and how can the catalogue be changed to avoid the problems? To answer these questions I have performed a usability test in which five persons, all students, got to carry out twenty tasks in the catalogue and talk about what they were doing and thinking while doing the test. This method is a usability method called Think Aloud.