The research presented in this thesis develops an improved design methodology for designing complex systems. While traditional methods have been able to create complex systems, their success is usually overshadowed by long delays and expensive overruns. The method developed within this research is known as Value Seeking System Design (VSSD) and builds upon the foundations of the System Engineering (SE) and Value Driven Design (VDD) approaches. Creation and implementation of the new design environment is provided, including a method on how to create the value model for any complex system. Key conclusions from this work include a need to redefine the process in which stakeholder needs are currently defined and captured as well as a need to create an improved value model. Defining all stakeholders’ needs as requirements constrains the designer to a rigid solution space, which may not include the “best” solution for the stakeholder. Similarly not including the social aspects within a value model causes the designer to make poor value trades. To overcome these problems the VSSD technique incorporates desirements and their associated design desirability functions within the design process to create a non-rigid solution space while the value model has been redeveloped to easily incorporate the performance, economic and social aspects of a design, to allow a more accurate and balanced value trade off analysis to occur. Benchmarking the VSSD approach against the current state of the art methods (SE and VDD) highlighted the advantages of adapting a value approach to complex system design compared to traditional requirement based techniques. Additionally while all three approaches were capable of designing complex systems the VSSD approach was demonstrated to be an improved design methodology as it possessed the benefits inherent within both the SE and VDD approaches without suffering from their limitations.

Time to market can be a decisive factor when bringing a new product or a new company to the market. Sometimes, for not defining strategic plans during the new product development phase, companies fail. According to the Lean Start Up Methodology (LSM), testing market-fit as early as possible and customer focused product development are important to increase the chances of a successful commercialization. The definition of a value proposition based on the market needs is seen as a central point to orchestrate key activities such as teamwork, efficient product development and marketing and finally the commercialization. In Sweden, the nutraceutical industry today represents a dynamic sector that offers novel opportunities to converge scientific discovery with growing consumer interest in health-improving foods.This study discourses on functional food segment, with a focus on probiotic, prebiotic and symbiotic-based products. It included a case study in a new company active in the nutraceutical sector in Sweden (TSL). Their actual strategy for commercializing a symbiotic-based weight loss program will be evaluated, and a new strategy built inspired on LSM Methodology is proposed, with a special focus on value proposition design.

Social network sites (SNS) were developed during the 90’s and got popularized in the mid 2010’s. SNSs are social platforms, where users can create a profile, add a network of contacts and communicate online. The LGBTQ+ community relies heavily on SNSs for information, exploration of identity, social support and community, but due to their marginalized status, they are more prone to victimization online. Whereas anonymity can protect users from bodily harm, it can’t protect against harassment and hatred, which is why it’s important to emphasize on user-centered design for marginalized communities within HCI. The objective with this study is to define design suggestions for future SNSs, based on the values of LGBTQ+ users. Two focus groups recruited from the local LGBTQ+ community in Berlin, consisting of seven participants in total, gathered in person. The focus groups discussed open ended questions around the topics of: safety, anonymity, accountability, social support and community online, seen from a queer perspective. The results of this study had correlations with prior research within HCI research and paints a picture of the differences between the “digital well- being” norm and the severity of the threats affecting the digital wellbeing of marginalized users. In conclusion, HCI and digital well-being research needs to be elaborated on, in regards to marginalized communities and their benefits and challenges of SNSs use and how that could be incorporated in a value sensitive design approach for future development.

Att sociala normer omedvetet inbäddas i interaktionsdesign har kommit att bli ett problem i takt med den ökade digitaliseringen. Tidigare forskning visar på att interaktionsdesign inte är en neutral plattform utan kan bidra till exkludering genom att förstärka uppfattningen om vem produkten riktar sig mot inom ramarna för de sociala normer som existerar i samhället. Kunskapsgapet ligger således i bristen på teoretiska och metodologiska tillvägagångssätt som hjälper designers att ifrågasätta normativa designkonventioner och navigera designrymden för alternativa metoder och praktiker. Denna kvalitativa studie med socialundersökning som forskningsstrategi grundar sig i att besvara forskningsfrågan: Vilka tillvägagångssätt använder UX-designers för att designa normkritiskt inom interaktionsdesign? I denna studie syftar tillvägagångssätt på olika metoder och principer som UX-designers använder i sitt normkritiska arbete. Genom semistrukturerade intervjuer intervjuades tio UX-designers med frågor som utgick från fyra perspektiv: kulturella representationer, interaktivitet, teknik och användningssammanhang. Data analyserades utifrån en tematisk analys och ställdes sedan i relation till dessa fyra perspektiv med kunskap från tidigare studier för att kunna besvara forskningsfrågan. Studien visade på att det fanns flera tillvägagångssätt till att designa normkritiskt, nämligen genom användarcentrerad design, tillgänglighetsgranskning, samt ifrågasättande av normativa designval. Vidare identifierades ett antal ekonomiska, strukturella och tekniska barriärer som motverkar UX-designers tillvägagångssätt för normkritisk interaktionsdesign. / In line with increased digitalisation, the fact that social norms subconsciously are embedded in interaction design has become a topic of discussion. Previous research shows that digitally designed platforms aren't as neutral as we once thought but excludes users by reinforcing the perception of a target audience within the framework of societal norms. The knowledge gap lies in the lack of theoretical and methodological approaches to assist designers in questioning normative design conventions and help navigate the design sphere for alternative methods and practices. By collecting data from social surveys, this qualitative study aims to understand and answer the research question: What approaches do UX designers use to design norm-critically within interaction design? In this study, approaches refers to methods and principles that UX designers use in their norm-critical design work. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten participants with questions based on four norm-critical perspectives: cultural representation, interactivity, technology, and context of use. Later, the data was analysed by the use of thematic analysis and examined in relation to these four perspectives with data collected from previous studies to be able to answer the research question. The study showed that UX designers have several approaches to working norm-critical, namely through user-centered design, accessibility reviews, and questioning normative design practices. However, a number of financial, structural, and technical barriers have been identified that counteracts UX designers approaches to norm-critical interaction design.

Previous studies have shown that ethically loaded design sit- uations within design currently present themselves as an implicit and non-reflexive activity. Others promote a development of ethi- cal tools which are incorporated within the normal set of methods and tools used during the design process. Within the service de- sign discipline no such research has been identified. In order to shed a light on the ethics within service design this thesis explores the ethical design ecology of service design and gives a first sketch of an ethical baseline for the field. The data collected in the study represents five weeks of shadowing in-house and external service design consultants working in Scandinavia. The data was analyzed by means of the three major normative theories within ethics and the Value-Sensitive Design framework. The analysis tools were ap- plied through a three step process where situations first were iden- tified, then the value-sensitive situations were flagged by means of the VSD-framework. Finally these value-sensitive situations were looked at from an ethical perspective using the three major ethical normative theories, consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics. The results demonstrate that service designers often approach eth- ical problems in an implicit and ethically consequentialist way and that when ethical situations are dealt with explicitly they are often of a nature in which the consequences of the proposed design solution easily can be foreseen.

Allt fler företag väljer att vara webbaserade och ägna sig helt till e-handel. Samtidigt fortsätter antalet e-handelsföretag att öka i antal kraftigt. Företagens behov av personlig information och kunddata har även ökat för att förbli konkurrenskraftiga. Vilket skapar ett problem, behovet av denna personliga information hos företagen riskerar att inkräkta på användarens personliga integritet. Tidigare forskning presenterar inte mycket angående värdet av den personliga integriteten och de fördelar ett skyddande av detta genererar.  En empirisk studie bland svenska användare på e-handelssidan tradera där deltagarna delade deras åsikter och värden angående den personliga integriteten och e-handel utfördes och sammanställdes. Den personliga integriteten ses som ett värde för att utreda detta begrepp med en konceptuell utredning, som är en teori inom värdekänslig design. Bidraget till forskningen är ett ramverk för e-handelsföretag som handlar om hur de skall hantera den personliga integriteten. Arbetet har präglats mycket av inläsning som det har getts utrymme för inom rapporten. / More and more companies choose to be online and devote themselves entirely to e-commerce. The number of companies who choose to be online is still continuing to increase rapidly.  The companies needs for personal information and customer data has increased in order to remain competitive. The problem is that the needs for this personal information from the companies are threating to intrude the customers privacy. Previous research is not addressing the value of information privacy and the benefit of privacy protection. I have conducted an empirical survey study among Swedish users on the e-commerce site Tradera where the participants shared their beliefs and values regarding privacy and e-commerce. I choose to see the privacy as a value in order to investigate this concept in a conceptual study, which is a theory in value sensitive design. My contribution to the research will be a framework for e-commerce and how they should manage the concept of privacy in e-commerce.

Wertorientierte Unternehmensführung, Wertstromdesign als zentrale Methode des Lean Managements und die Flexibilität von Produktionssystemen haben sich als Managementansätze in der Vergangenheit bewährt. Die Koexistenz dieser Ansätze stellt Führungskräfte vor die tägliche Herausforderung, ihren jeweiligen Beitrag zur wertorientierten Unternehmensführung zu erkennen, operative Entscheidungen zu treffen und auf diese Weise die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit des Unternehmens im Spannungsfeld der Interessen der Anspruchsgruppen sicherzustellen. Unter der leitenden Forschungsfrage, welchen Beitrag das Wertstromdesign als Instrument der wertorientierten Unternehmensführung zum Unternehmenswert unter Beachtung der Flexibilität des Produktionssystems leistet, werden die Einzelkonzepte detailliert betrachtet, wesentliche Einflussgrößen sowie deren durch Reduktion von Komplexität entstehende Wechselwirkungen identifiziert und zur Handlungsorientierung methodisch gestützte Gestaltungsempfehlungen formuliert.

Values and concerns of project participants have influence on design quality as well as on the design process itself. These determine the functional, social and &aelig / sthetic characteristics of the project that are necessary to achieve client satisfaction. The issues of value and quality are compared within the context of architectural programming, including their theoretical and philosophical ground as well as current management techniques. Value and quality can be misunderstood and confused with each other / therefore, it is vital for project participants to have a common understanding of terminology and meaning. This study includes a comprehensive literature survey on architectural programming and design quality. The current approaches to the construction project process in Turkey were observed through analyzing an hotel project in Turgutreis, Turkey. Supporting tools like Project Definition Rating Index (PDRI) and Design Quality Indicators (DQI) were studied in detail and discussed by the project participants who involved in and affected the design of the project. This study on architectural programming aimed to explore opportunities for identifying and delivering values into the current process of construction projects. It attempted to claim due recognition for designers in that they had an important role to play in developing better quality buildings and that they designed buildings within pertinent social, political and cultural contexts. It was expected that analysis of participants&amp / #8217 / values would provide an understanding of the elaborate decision-making that architects have to perform in order to produce added value in designs, and of how architects resolve design problems.

In design and optimization of a complex system, there exist various methods for defining the relationship between the system as a whole, the subsystems and the individual components. Traditional methods provide requirements at the system level which lead to a set of design targets for each subsystem. Meeting these targets is sometimes a simple task or can be very difficult and expensive, but this is not captured in the design process and therefore unknown at the system level. This work compares Requirements Allocation (RA) with Distributed Value Driven Design (DVDD). A computational experiment is proposed as a means of evaluating RA and DVDD. A common preliminary design is determined by optimizing the utility of the system, and then a Subsystem of Interest (SOI) is chosen as the focal point of subsystem design. First the behavior of a designer using Requirements Allocation is modeled with an optimization problem where the distance to the design targets is minimized. Next, two formulations of DVDD objective functions are used to approximate the system-level value function. The first is a linear approximation and the second is a nonlinear approximation with higher fidelity around the preliminary design point. This computational experiment is applied to a series hybrid vehicle where the SOI is the electric motor. In this case study, RA proves to be more effective than DVDD on average. It is still possible that the use of objectives is superior to design targets. This work shows that, for this case study, a linear approximation as well as a slightly higher fidelity approximation are not well suited to find the design alternative with the highest expected utility.

Global challenges such as increasingly competitive markets, low-cost competition, shorter lead time demands, and high quality/value output are transforming the business model of the company to focus beyond the performance requirements. In order to meet these challenges, companies are highly concerned with the customer perceived value, which is to connect the product with the customer in a better way and become more proactive to fulfil the customer needs, via function-oriented business models and Product-Service Systems. In literature, the conceptual phase is distinguished as the most critical phase of the product development process. Many authors have recognized the improvement of design in the conceptual phase as the mean to deliver a successful product in the market. At the decision gate, where concepts are selected for further development, the design team needs knowledge/data about the long-term consequences of their early decision, to see how changes in design propagate to the entire lifecycle of the product. The main goal of the thesis is to describe how the design of Product-Service Systems in the conceptual phase can be improved through the use of a data-driven approach. The latter provides an opportunity to enhance decision making and to provide better support at the early development phase. The study highlights how data are managed and used in current industrial setting and indicates the room for improvement with current practices. The thesis further provides guidelines to efficiently use data into the modelling and simulation activities to increase design knowledge. As a result of this study, a data-driven approach emerged to support the early design decision.  The thesis presents initial descriptive study findings from the empirical investigations, showing a model-based approach that creates awareness about the value of a new design concept, thus acting as a key enabler to use data in design. This will create a link between the product engineering characteristic to the high-level attributes of customer satisfaction and provider’s long-term profitability. The preliminary results indicate that the application of simulation models to frontload the early design stage creates awareness about how performance can lead to value creation, helping multidisciplinary teams to perform quick trade-off and what-if analysis on design configurations. The proposed framework shows how data from various sources are used through a chain of simulations to understand the entire product lifecycle. The proposed approach holds a potential to improve the key performance indicators for Product-Service Systems development: lead time, design quality, cost and most importantly deliver a value-added product to the customer.