Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka förskollärares föreställningar om sin handlingsfrihet att använda digitala teknik samt synliggöra deras syn på teknikens möjligheter och utmaningar i undervisningen. Studien utgår från Priestleys modell av Agency med illustration av tre huvudområden med iterationella, praktiskt utvärderande och projektiva dimensioner. Enligt Priestley innebär att uppnåendet av agens alltid sker i konkreta och specifika sammanhang och förståelse av ett fenomen är beroende av kontexten som är ständigt föränderliga över tid (Priestley et al., 2015). Studien tar sin utgångspunkt i den kvalitativ metod i form av semistrukturerade intervjuer. Det insamlade materialet från intervjuerna genomgått en tematisk analys genom att transkriberats, sorterats, reducerats och argumenterats. Studiens resultat presenterades genom tre huvudteman där tema belyser olika kontruktioner. Det första temat betonade förskollärarnas syn på teknikens användning för lärande, och digital teknik sågs som en pedagogisk resurs, främjar kreativitet och språkutveckling samt tekniken upplevde som okontrollerbara. I det andra temat framkom att förskollärare kände sig osäkra i sin interaktion med digital teknik, hade vaga digitala kompetenser och visade brist på intresse för digitalanvändningen. Det tredje temat handlade om förskollärare i samkonstruktion med tekniken kan det leda till skolifieringsagent, programmeringsagent, kritiska agent och dokumenteringsaktör. Slutsatser som kan dras från studien är att tekniken är föränderlig och det innebär att förskollärare bör kontinuerlig hålla sig uppdaterad i utvecklingen. Digital teknik är en integrerad del av samhället och det är viktig som förskollärare att känna till barns rätt till digitalt lärande.

In response to the critical need for a national mass casualty triage system in Sweden, this design study presents an iterative approach to developing a cognitive support tool tailored for medical personnel. The study integrates user feedback garnered through interviews with potential end-users and thematic analysis to understand the needs, preferences, and challenges in triage situations. The themes derived work to inform the creation of two distinct design proposals, with one of them based on existing support material to support the recognition primed decision making (RPDM) theory. Subsequently, these proposals undergo rigorous evaluation via a questionnaire designed to assess various criteria crucial to effective decision-making in such high-pressure scenarios. This questionnaire measures multiple design criteria essential for effective decision-making, including clarity, ease of use, comprehensiveness, and usability. Participants also provide qualitative feedback, offering insights into the strengths and weaknesses of each design proposal.  Analysis of the questionnaire data reveals a clear preference for specific aspects of each proposal. Specifically, participants favour the front side of Proposal 2 for its simple design of the triage algorithm. The back side of Proposal 1 received higher scores for its recognition primed design and intuitive portray of the triage system. The findings of this study underscore the importance of iterative design processes informed by user feedback in the development of decision support tools for high-stakes scenarios such as mass casualty triage. Future iterations of the design will integrate these preferences to refine the tool further, ultimately aiming to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of medical personnel in responding to mass casualty incidents and to investigate the cognitive theories supporting design.

This study leverages a critical provocation design approach to examine user interactions with intelligent agents, specifically focusing on how non-conventional agent behaviours impact user perceptions. By embedding playful, challenging, and mischievous elements into the user experience, the research aims to uncover insights that traditional methods might miss. The experimental design involved participants interacting with a trivia game agent named Trivia Friend, which intentionally provided false feedback to provoke reactions and gain insights on user perceptions. Key findings highlight the emotional spectrum elicited by the agent’s behaviour, ranging from frustration and mistrust to amusement and engagement. The study reveals that user perceptions of fairness and communication style are influenced by the agent’s provocations. Furthermore, the research underscores the importance of managing user expectations. A provocative design can stimulate engagement. However, real world implementations of intelligent agents must be designed with fairness and transparency to ensure positive user experiences. The study calls for incorporating efforts towards emotional understanding, clear communication, and ethical considerations when implementing socially capable intelligent agents. This research contributes to the development of adaptive, user-friendly, and ethically sound intelligent AI based agents by offering valuable insights into the complex dynamics of human-agent interactions.

My thesis project explores a new paradigm of mood board tool that challenges the current paradigm of confining everything to 2D, flat interfaces. while investi- gating how AI can inspire and assist industrial designers during the form explora- tion process. Using a human-centered design approach, the project led to the development of COSMO, an AI-integrated, inspiration-triggering mood board tool for industrial designers. It addresses the issue of limited variety in current digital inspiration platforms, where similar content is often suggested due to AI algorithms. COSMO encourages using a variety of inspiration sources, including digital visuals and real-life experiences. This approach fosters creativity and personal connection, helping designers deeply resonate with the inspiration they collect and retrieve it at a more profound level. COSMO also utilizes Mixed Reality technology to offer an immersive, distrac- tion-free experience when organizing and internalizing inspiration sources. It offers a virtual meditative space that uses AI-assisted association loops to build associations. These loops create multiple layers of associations, assisting human designers in widening their initial associations. This leads to inspiration sources that are semantically different but insightful.

Even though most of our life happens in the physical world, most applications of AI are digital. We have to explain our intention and context to chatbots for them to support us with things happening in the world around us. Archetype AI, the collaboration partner of this thesis, is developing a Large Behavior Model (LBM) that perceivesand reasons about the physical world in real time by fusing multimodal sensor data and natural language. This thesis is a side track to the technical development of this LBM, exploring the landscape of interactions enabled when AI understands the world around us. A series of interventions with physical AI as a design material is presented to illustrate what the relation with such intelligent systems could look like in the future. The research also highlights the evolving role of designers, which transitions from crafting explicit interactions to shaping the behaviour of intelligent and context-aware environments. Lastly, the research raises questions to start asking as AI, and its role in our lives is evolving.

This project looks at the future of play. Technology currently dominates kid’s leisure time. Digital distractions contribute to decreasing playtime, emphasizing passive media consumption over active engagement in play. The project proposes integrating digital interactivity into physical toys to enhance active play. Doing so by expanding play possibilities and inspiring purpose. Simultaneously it is addressing the challenges of designing toys for diverse preferences by designing adaptive play elements. This project is exploring what is important for a regulating entity in Digi-physical play experiences. Calling for a conceptual solution named a Play agent. The report dives into various prototypes exploring what a play agent could be, what its roles are and what aspects could make them successful in creating sustained play patterns. It proposes two play types synced to the use of a play agent.

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation become more intertwined, understanding their impact on user control is essential. This study investigates dynamic user control in AI-driven automated systems, particularly in work environments. While adaptive automation (AA) has been extensively studied, there's a gap in research on adaptable and hybrid automation, where users control the level of automation (LOA). We bridge this gap with a design-oriented case study structured into three phases, evaluating one adaptable and one hybrid prototype. By understanding real-world perspectives of users and providers of an AI-driven automation system, we address the question: "How can we support users with dynamic control when designing for human-centred automation?”. Our findings are synthesized into insights that suggest a preference for a hybrid approach; one that balances user and AI-system collaboration, providing adaptive and personalized support, without overwhelming adaptability. Overall, our results conclude the importance of human involvement in the automation process, underscoring the need for "human touch” in the design of humancentred automation (HCAI).

An increasing amount of both physical and mental layers keep distancing urban dwellers from the biophysical envi- ronment that we often call nature. Environmental psycholo- gists have coined the term ‘extinction of experience’ to de- scribe the decreasing amount of encounters urban dwellers have with the natural environment. With the depletion of these experiences we have less relation to the natural world. And what we cannot relate to, we find hard to value. The intent has been to explore new ways urban dwelling adults could interact with the natural environment in order to help them relate to the abstract notion of biodiversity. The final concept is inspired by expert and user insights gathered through ethnographic research methods. The resulting design concept is a service and product eco- system that is based in the field of soundscape ecology.

This thesis proposes a concept for exploring cities with an inclusive map. Most of current studies and projects only include one kind of user groups if creating systems for navigation and exploring new areas. Often, if creating a system for a very exclusive user group, e. g. visually impaired, other user groups are not considered. Though in order to create an accessible system, studies should include the user in the range of the most inclusive and most exclusive user groups. This is why we tried to create the concept of a design for an accessible city map under the approach of inclusive design. Since around 15 per cent of the world population suffer from some kind of disability, we decided to start with the most exclusive users of a city map – visually impaired. Therefore, theoretical and practical human-centred design methods are used to create a prototype hand in hand with the future user groups. The details used in the design process incorporates data from 10 survey answers from visually impaired people as well as data from 10 interviews with sighted people and a workshop with six people from different professions out of sociology, tourism marketing, HCI and language sciences. Additionally, at the end of the process, an evaluation with three visually impaired and two sighted people was used to prove the concept of the created prototype. The prototype was created with different digital fabrication and IoT tools and technologies. It should help to make public spaces more accessible and explorable. We hope to deliver a base idea of an accessible city map, which shows how to include inclusive design in the regular design process, in order to design without exceptions. The evaluation showed that our idea worked and that even though the users' groups are very different, they have a lot in common.

Källkritik och informationssökning är en viktig del av en digital kompetens och därav även en stor del av revideringen av LGR11 (Skolverket, 2018a) som fokuserat på att digitalisera skolan. Tidigare forskning tyder på att minst undervisning inom området ges i grundskolans tidiga år. Syftet med denna studie är således att få en ökad insikt i hur undervisning i och om området ser ut i årskurserna F-3. Vi valde att främst se till lärarnas egna resonemang och tolkningar, därav har våra metoder utgått från en kvalitativ ansats och ett pragmatiskt perspektiv. Genom surveyundersökning och semistrukturerade intervjuer har vi kunnat se över 38 F-3 lärares tankar om undervisning i källkritik och informationssökning. Lärarna i studien ser området som en självklar del av det vardagliga arbetet i skolan och en viktig kunskap i det digitaliserade samhället som bör arbetas med från förskolan och i alla skolans ämnen, däremot uteblir undervisningen ofta trots att lärarna ser sina egna kunskaper i området som tillräckliga. Lärarna uttrycker ett behov av kompetensutveckling inom området då de upplever osäkerheter kring den didaktiska aspekten. Faktatexter och diskussioner i helklass blir därför de vanligast förekommande arbetsmetoderna oavsett årskurs och skolbiblioteket ses inte som en resurs i undervisningen vid källkritik och informationssökning. Området har en tendens att prioriteras bort med anledning av brist på tid, både vad gäller planering och undervisningstid, och digitala verktyg. / Source criticism and information literacy is a major part of the knowledge and skills needed in a digital era and therefore an important component in the revise of the Swedish curriculum of the compulsory school (Skolverket, 2018a) that targets the digitalization of the Swedish school system. Thus’, previous studies show that less education is provided for pupils in compulsory school in the subject of source criticism and information literacy, than in any other grade. The purpose of this study is to get additional insight in the education of source criticism and information literacy in compulsory school. We chose to study the teachers’ interpretations of the subject and how they implement the subject into their own classroom. Therefore, we have chosen a qualitative approach with a pragmatic perspective. Through a survey and multiple semi-structured interviews, we have been able to inquire about the reasonings of 38 compulsory school teachers. The teachers in this study view source criticism and information literacy as a natural part of their daily teaching and as an important societal based knowledge or ability in a digital society. A subject that is both important to introduce in pre-school and should be included in every school subject. Yet the teachers express a need for competence development as a result of an uncertainty with the didactic features of the pupils’ education. Factual texts and discussions held with the whole class, in the classroom, is therefore the most common approach regardless of grade. The school library is not seen as a resource for learning about source criticism and information literacy. The subject tends to get lower priority compared to other subjects due to the lack of time in both planning and teaching-hours and also due to the lack of digital tools available.