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 purpose of this essay is to identify how the drug user is portrayed in motion pictures. My main questions are: How is the drug use described? How is the male and female drug user depicted? How may the movies contribute to the construction, reproduction and change of gender? The method I use in my research is a qualitative, selective discourse- analysis of a number of movies prominently portraying drug use. A gender perspective is also applied on this paper.The main result of the study is that I have found that the great majority of the analyzed films portray drug use as means for something else. Drug use is often portrayed in the beginning as heavenly but changes to be depicted as problematic.

Bakgrund och problemformulering - Vi har valt att studera och analysera i vilket avseende det sker user innovation på ett forum skapat av företaget Salesforce. Forumet är ett brand community för användare som utvecklar Salesforce tjänster. Frågeställningarna behandlar om det sker olika typer av user innovation och vad det är som driver användarna till att innovera på det forum vi har valt att studera. Vår studie syftar till att bidra med en bredare kunskap och förståelse kring ämnet då det finns begränsad forskning kring user innovation inom online brand communities idag.Teori - Begreppet brand communities förklaras utifrån Muniz och O?Guinns (2001) synsätt som innebär att ett online brand community är en samlingsplats på internet dedikerat till ett specifikt varumärke.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine the contemporary educational tasks of the Swedish public library as they manifest in Swedish library journals. Our main question at issue is: Which educational discourses are there? And in relation to our main question: how do the concepts of information literacy, lifelong learning and adult education relate to each other? Is there an antagonism between the public library's duty to supply fiction as opposed to non-fiction? and: What are the consequences of these discourses in the service provided by the library?Our theoretical starting-point is the discourse theory as proposed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. We analyse 39 texts from four Swedish library journals: Ikoner, bis, DIK-forum and Biblioteksbladet. The analysis is done in two phases.

The purpose of the case study is to research whether the brand Hollister can establish themselves to their target audience working with communication. To achieve the goal with the study, the following theories has been applied: brand building, visual communication, two-way symmetrical communication and communication channels. The study was conducted by a quantitative online questionnaire survey. The online survey was aimed at teenagers aged 15-18 years old living in Täby or Umeå where one question was "What difference can be discerned between Täby, where there is a shop, and Umeå where there is no shop". The material was collected during a period of eight days between december 11th to december 19th 2013.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the relationship between visual communication and female homosexuality within the field of magazine design. As the creative part of the project I have chosen to make a redesign of Lotus magazine, the very first Swedish magazine with lesbian and bisexual girls as the target audience. The questions of which the project is based on are: Which stereotypes, differences and similarities can be found in visual communication addressed to a heterosexual versus a homosexual target audience? What kind of design attracts non-heterosexual girls and how can I create a design for Lotus magazine that is appealing to lesbian and bisexual girls and yet still makes it possible to compete with traditional girls? magazines? In order to examine my research questions I have done literature studies within the field of gender and sexual identity in relation to visual communication. Additionally, I have analysed the design of competing magazines on the market and conducted a survey among representatives of the target audience of Lotus magazine..

Abstract The present study examined if early deaf people and people with severe hearing loss perceive visual information differently than hearing people. An experiment was conducted with eight deaf participants and eight participants with normal hearing. The participants were between the ages of 18-74 years. The participants were asked to look at fifteen different images portraying manipulated illusions, and then assess if the images were of the same size. Subsequently another image depicting a different illusion with a face hidden in it was presented to the participants.

Prosthetic leg can give a negative psychological effect to the user, which ends up in decreased self-esteem and that the user hides his handicap. xCover gives a more natural volume and a cool look. xCover changes the look of the prosthetic leg C-leg. The product is constructed by us, Patrik Svensson and Magnus Zetterqvist, for Christoffer Lindhe at Lindhextend AB. Christoffer has hired Martin Bergman at Smedjan 17 to make the design.

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.

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 information society creates new demands on the knowledge making individual; besides being literate one has to be information literate. And in the educational society there is an ongoing change from teaching to learning, the focal point being the active student and life long learning. The aim of this dissertation is to within a context of learning and teaching elucidate the relation between user education and subject education by examining what significance the academic libraries user education has for the development of information literacy within students. Some epistemological theories connected with learning is presented as well as aspects of the information search process and of information literacy. Universities and their libraries view of information literacy and the goal of their user education is being focused on in an empirical study.

In order to respond to a more complex community planning with increased cooperation and public participation, a common language and a common model to be used as a base for the communication process is needed. The thesis behind this dissertation for a master's degree is that a virtual 3D planning portal would respond to this need. Why and how are explained and described through studies of communication- and perception theory as well as technology and recent research. The introduction concludes that a broad participation and a transparence towards underlying information are important foundations for the coming work with the model. The first four chapters of the theory part show the benefits of using natural signs in our mixed cultural society, instead of the more arbitrary symbols. Using visual landscapes for storing information is motivated by the flexibility of our visual memory and its ability to understand complex connections.

AbstractIn this thesis we aim to extend the current theories about a concept called persona. A persona is a model of a user, mostly based on qualitative research and made with such accuracy that it to some extent can be used as a replacement of a real user in a development process and as a communicative tool. We will present a way of constructing this persona without meeting the actual users and follow up with interviews from the organization using them. This will lead to a model over the process of introducing personas as a concept in an organization,previously not familiar with the concept. The model is adapted to also work for projects and organizations where the concept is already known..

This master thesis was carried out at Scania in Södertälje, Sweden. It investigates the possibility of changing a connector interface that is used when there is a need for splicing the wheel speed sensor and thereby determine the consequences.The problems that exist with the current connector interface occur during assembly, as more time is required to complete a connection in a reliable manner. A complete connection requires joining the male and female connector, insert the connection into a protective retainer and then strap a cable tie on each end of the retainer. This process makes it more time consuming and it requires 20-30 seconds to complete the connection. Solving this problem would save time and enable easier assembly, therefore resulting in economical benefits.This thesis was accomplished through discussions with different sections at Scania, studying available documentations, observations during assembly, writing a requirement specification and contacting suppliers.The aforementioned methods resulted in four connector suggestions, the DT and DTMH connector from Deutsch, MCON connector from TE connectivity and MLK connector from Kostal, each of them compliant with the set demands of the surrounding environment.

The aim of this master thesis is to study if the websites of the Swedish public libraries are accessible to all people. According to the library law all people must have access to the public libraries and their information services. Today, when the Internet is one of the largest sources of information, it is important that all people, including those with different kind of disabilities, children, elderly, immigrants and people with old technical equipment, have access to the public libraries websites.We have in this study considered the graphic user interface, the language, the structure and the navigation possibilities at ten public library websites. We have from a checklist of our own, based upon the opinion of different experts such as Jacob Nielsen and Tommy Sundström, investigated the websites.The main finding of our study is that the websites are generally accessible even thou we found a lack of accessible for immigrants. Most of the websites had some pages in English, but none hade all pages in this language.