The use of visual aesthetics has been found to contribute to feelings of a positive Web experience. Accordingly, studies report strong correlations between aesthetics and facets of user experience like usability and credibility, but does this hold for accessibility also? Some believe that Web aesthetics impedes accessibility, while most Web designers perceive that the accessibility initiative is restrictive design-wise. These misconceptions have slowed down the advancement of an inclusive Web. Firstly, it is clear that the relationship between Web aesthetics and accessibility is still poorly understood. Secondly, tools capable of analysing the aesthetic quality of Web pages and relaying associated accessibility status information are lacking. This thesis addresses these two problems. In order to investigate this relationship, the aesthetic judgements of 180 users were elicited to help classify Web pages based on their visual quality using Lavie and Tractinsky's framework. The classified Web pages were then technically and manually audited for accessibility compliance using 4 automated tools, and 11 experts who used a heuristic evaluation technique known as the Barrier Walkthrough (BW) method to check for barriers which could affect people with visual impairments. Our results consistently showed that Web pages judged on Lavie and Tractinsky's classical aesthetic dimension as being `clean' had significant correlations with accessibility, suggesting `cleanness' to be a suitable proxy measure for accessibility. Expressive dimensions showed no such correlations. This insight was used to develop the EIVAA tool aimed at predicting the aesthetic quality of Web pages and using the information to provide accessibility ratings for the pages. Quantitative evaluations show that the tool is able to predict aesthetic quality in a way that mimics gold standards, especially along the design dimension `clean' where we observed tool-human correlations as strong as 0.703, thus making the associated accessibility predictions also acceptable. We envision that our findings will give the Web community a more holistic understanding of the interactions between the use of aesthetics and accessibility, and that our tool would inform Web developers of the implications of their designs.

User onboarding is a concept to convince and introduce users to use an application and a way for users to understand the application and what it can be used for. This research aimed to explore whether user onboarding could increase the usage of an audiobook application, and help users to find a suitable book. To examine the research question a human-center-design method was applied. It consisted of an extensive literature study, interviews, journey mapping and iterative prototyping, which resulted in an implemented user onboarding prototype for an audiobook application. The prototype was evaluated with an A/B-test, where the user onboarding prototype was compared to another prototype without user onboarding.  Interesting results have emerged through A/B-testing. Findings in this research did not provide any significant correlation between user onboarding and increased usage of an audiobook application. However, the user onboarding motivated users to listen to books, compared to one not being exposed to a user onboarding.  Furthermore, results also revealed that the prototype with user onboarding was helping the users to find a book they were interested in. The results also showed that women who were introduced to the prototype with user onboarding were more positive to use the application again. There was a significant correlation between user onboarding and the perceived simplicity of finding an interesting book in the group of participants aged between 26 and 30. Regarding the perceived usability, findings showed that the users who were introduced to the user onboarding experienced that it was easier to find a book, felt more motivated to listen to a book, felt that the application helped them to find a book that suited them and felt that the application introduced them to the audiobook format to a greater extent than those who were not exposed to user onboarding. However, it could not be proven that there was a statistically significant difference between the group that was introduced to the user onboarding and the group that was not exposed to the user onboarding.  In this research a total of 66 people participated in the A/B-test. For future research a larger number of participants could provide interesting results, since an A/B-test benefits from a high number of participants. Some of the results were bordering to prove that there were a significant correlation between being exposed to user onboarding and greater usage of an application.

Hlávková Barbora. User experience focused on credibility in e-commerce. Brno: Mendel University in Brno, 2017. The thesis deals with User experience focused on credibility in e-commerce survey of the Y generation. To determine the perception of the credibility on e-shops was used eye tracking (n = 30) with in-depth interviews (n = 30) and questionnaire survey (n = 155). The aim of the thesis is to suggest general recommendations for e-commerce in terms of consumer trust.

This research introduces the concept of transferability into the usability construct and creates the Usability Paradigm for Multiple Device System (UPMDS) to conceptualize and quantify the usability in multiple device scenarios. This study fills the literature gap that no effective method exists in measuring transferability and in quantifying usability in a multiple device context. This study also answers the research questions regarding the impact of task complexity, user experience, and device order on the total usability of the system. Study one follows a systematic approach to develop, validate, and apply a new questionnaire tailored specifically to measure the transferability within a multiple device system. The System Transferability Questionnaire (STQ) is obtained after validation with 15 question items. In a software usability study, the STQ demonstrated excellent internal reliability and validity. Results show that the STQ is effective in capturing four factors regarding transferability, which are transfer experience (TE), overall experience (OE), consistency perception (CP) and functionality perception (FP). Validation results show good convergent, discriminant, criterion and nomonlogical validity. Study two adopts a systematic tool to consolidate usability constructs into a total usability score. The study utilizes principal component analysis (PCA) to determine the weight of the four usability components (satisfaction, transferability, effectiveness, and efficiency), which is used when obtaining the total usability score. Results show slightly different weights for the four components. This quantitative tool can be applied in different usability context in which multiple devices are involved. Usability specialists are encouraged to adjust the tool based on different usability scenarios. Study three investigates the impact of task complexity, user experience, and device order on the total system usability. Results show that the total usability score is not affected by task complexity, user experience or device order. However, lower physical task complexity leads to longer performance time and lower errors from the users. High experienced users have significantly lower errors made in tasks. The machine order also has divergent results. When the mini-lathe machine was used first, users had better transferability results but poorer performance outcomes as compared to when the drill press was used first.

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This manuscript provides an understanding of water conservation related innovations in green buildings, both in terms of what is being selected in design phase and how professionals perceive their experiences with these innovations. The innovations examined include toilets, showers, sinks, plumbing, water heating, appliances, alternative water sources, landscaping, performance monitoring, and user education. It contains a literature review of unanticipated consequences associated with these innovations, and creates a framework for categorizing these based on a synthesis of the literature of unanticipated consequences. A review of certification documents from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system identifies what landscaping, toilet, and shower innovations are most commonly designed for in LEED certified buildings. These data are also used to identify differences in innovation selection across climate regimes. An internet survey of green building professionals provides a picture of satisfaction with these innovations in practice. It also gives examples of these experiences so that future users can take advantage or take caution as necessary. / Master of Science

A cultura da participação abre no mundo digital um leque de novos e remodelados comportamentos do mundo clássico. Tanto os formatos de participação, quanto a colaboração e cooperação se ressignificam dentro da cibercultura. O que é fundamental para entender o consumo colaborativo. Este trabalho delineia um posicionamento conceitual do consumo colaborativo entre outros conceitos semelhantes como compartilhamento, cooperação e dilemas sociais, com o objetivo de diferenciar gradientes de colaboração dentro dos modelos de consumo colaborativo. Na investigação teórica, o que se encontrou foi uma linha tênue que distingue os graus de colaboração e cooperação pelo nível de envolvimento pró-social e a interação entre consumidores. Do ponto de vista da comunicação e do design de user experience, esse trabalho realizar um estudo de recepção que compara os elementos informativos gráficos mais recorrentes nos sites de consumo colaborativo com a percepção de importância desses elementos pelos usuários. Além de contribuir com uma escala de colaboração que pode ser aplicada em iniciativas desse tipo para classificá-las desde altamente cooperativas a altamente colaborativas. Os achados auxiliarão futuras pesquisas acadêmicas nessa área. / The participatory culture in the digital world opens a range of new and refurbished behaviors of the classical world. The shades of sharing, collaboration and cooperation are resignify within cyberculture. This is critical to understand the collaborative consumption. This paper outlines a conceptual positioning of the collaborative consumption and other similar concepts such as sharing, cooperation and social dilemmas, in order to differentiate collaboration gradients inside collaborative consumption models. In theoretical research, we found a fine line that distinguishes the degrees of collaboration and cooperation by the level of prosocial involvement and interaction among consumers. From the point of view of communication and user experience design, this work conduct a study of reception that compares the most frequent graphic pieces of information on collaborative consumption websites with the perceived importance of these elements by the users. Besides contributing with a collaborative scale that can be applied in such initiatives to rank them from highly cooperative to highly collaborative. The findings will help future academic research in this area.

designaffairs entwickelt seit 20 Jahren Strategien und Design für Produkte in den Bereichen Hardware, Software und Services. Mit weltweit mehr als 70 Experten bieten wir Leistungen in Research, Strategie, Design und Engineering an. Dabei kombinieren wir erfolgreich Kreativität mit wissenschaftlichen Methoden. [... aus dem Text]

A cultura da participação abre no mundo digital um leque de novos e remodelados comportamentos do mundo clássico. Tanto os formatos de participação, quanto a colaboração e cooperação se ressignificam dentro da cibercultura. O que é fundamental para entender o consumo colaborativo. Este trabalho delineia um posicionamento conceitual do consumo colaborativo entre outros conceitos semelhantes como compartilhamento, cooperação e dilemas sociais, com o objetivo de diferenciar gradientes de colaboração dentro dos modelos de consumo colaborativo. Na investigação teórica, o que se encontrou foi uma linha tênue que distingue os graus de colaboração e cooperação pelo nível de envolvimento pró-social e a interação entre consumidores. Do ponto de vista da comunicação e do design de user experience, esse trabalho realizar um estudo de recepção que compara os elementos informativos gráficos mais recorrentes nos sites de consumo colaborativo com a percepção de importância desses elementos pelos usuários. Além de contribuir com uma escala de colaboração que pode ser aplicada em iniciativas desse tipo para classificá-las desde altamente cooperativas a altamente colaborativas. Os achados auxiliarão futuras pesquisas acadêmicas nessa área. / The participatory culture in the digital world opens a range of new and refurbished behaviors of the classical world. The shades of sharing, collaboration and cooperation are resignify within cyberculture. This is critical to understand the collaborative consumption. This paper outlines a conceptual positioning of the collaborative consumption and other similar concepts such as sharing, cooperation and social dilemmas, in order to differentiate collaboration gradients inside collaborative consumption models. In theoretical research, we found a fine line that distinguishes the degrees of collaboration and cooperation by the level of prosocial involvement and interaction among consumers. From the point of view of communication and user experience design, this work conduct a study of reception that compares the most frequent graphic pieces of information on collaborative consumption websites with the perceived importance of these elements by the users. Besides contributing with a collaborative scale that can be applied in such initiatives to rank them from highly cooperative to highly collaborative. The findings will help future academic research in this area.

The main objective of this work is to propose a software development methodology which will reflect both issues -- design of User Experience (UX) and its implementation. The second objective is to compare the current software development methodologies. The third objective is to describe the work environment and the principles of that environment to fully implement this methodology. The fourth objective is to test the methodology in practice and validate its performance on my own startup. The fifth objective is to analyze companies which are focusing on similar product as my startup and their approach to UX development. First I will take look at waterfall methodology and then at modern agile methodologies such as Scrum, Kanban and Lean management, which are now becoming standard in software development. I will describe issues with the integration of UX into software development. The next section will introduce my own methodology, which is based on Scrum. The methodology consists of general principles of Lean and Agile management and the management, which is sometimes called "freedom at work". Then I will use the proposed methodology on my own startup project and will evaluate its use in practice. In last part I will analyze development process with focus on UX in projects Medium and Facebook. Thesis combines knowledge from Lean and agile management, economy and cognitive science to show the way to succeed in today services with great UX.