This thesis was conducted to explore and try to understand the area of comfort within cars with an emphasize on interior surfaces. Research within comfort has been focused on the consequences of moving mechanical parts and not on the user experience of the interior cabin design. A user-centered approach has been implemented to focus on those who are experiencing comfort. Two extensive-user tests have been conducted to investigate the perception of surface material and the combination of radiuses and paddings against three body parts. The results have then been statistically analyzed in combination with a qualitative analysis. It has been found that comfort is hard to define, but many participants, scholars, and designers agree that comfort induces a feeling of relaxation and pleasantness. The user tests have also investigated how the tactile and visual senses affect the perceived pleasantness of a surface material, where the results differ depending on the material. However, both senses need to be considered when designing for comfort. Comfort is considered important to achieve satisfied users, which implies that the evaluation of comfort should be implemented as an essential part of the design process.

To achieve success in today's competitive environment, companies are realising the importance of design collaboration during new product development. The aim of this research was to develop a collaborative design tool for use by industrial designers and engineering designers. To achieve this, a literature review was undertaken to understand the working relationship among the two disciplines during new product development. Following this, empirical research through interviews and observations outlined three problem areas: conflicts in values and principles; differences in education; and differences in representational tools and methods. The latter was chosen because the problem area of design representations was found to be highly significant. In looking at bridging differences in design representations, a taxonomy comprising 35 forms of sketches, drawings, models and prototypes was generated. A second stage of empirical research was conducted to establish the popularity of each representation and the type of design / technical information that industrial designers and engineering designers communicated with. The information was indexed into CoLab cards that would enable the two disciplines to gain joint understanding and create shared knowledge when using visual design representations. Following a pilot evaluation and minor modifications, student and practitioner interviews with a case study were employed to assess the significance of CoLab. The findings revealed that 82% of the interviewees felt CoLab to have built a common ground through the use of visual design representations. 75% gave a positive rating when asked if the system would enhance collaboration and 91% gave the physical cards a positive response as it provided instant access to information and allowed easy sharing. This thesis is a step towards a greater understanding of collaboration between industrial designers and engineering designers. The use of the CoLab system provides the prospect of achieving a common ground between the two disciplines.

The e-commerce is an area that has grown considerably in recent years and continues to grow at a rapid pace. It is thereby becoming more and more important for com-panies to distinguish themselves amongst others, not least when it comes to getting customers to return for a second purchase. A good way to do this is to create a posi-tive experience for consumers. As the interaction with the customers has shifted from physical meetings to a computer screen through the spread of online retail, it is im-portant to nourish the few encounters that remain. An important point of interaction is the receiving of purchased goods. The packaging in which the goods are shipped, is thus an important source of communication to the customer, and a perfect means of displaying the company values. This thesis project aims at examining how an optimal packaging for this area can be created, and this was done in collaboration with Arcwise, a SCA business unit, who works with a special type of corrugated cardboard that allows for the production of rounded shaped packages. During the contextual work of this project, where a basic analysis of the market was made, a number of needs could be established. To be able to create a positive user experience and thus a competitive edge in the market, these needs must be fulfilled by packages made for shipping online-bought items. Following these needs, the project’s design phase was carried out with the aim of creating a packaging solution by using the corrugated board developed by Arcwise. This work was done by using creative methods such as brainstorming, workshop and prototyping. To evaluate the ideas, a weighting against criteria was done, and tests were made when the packaging concepts were shipped from Sundsvall to Luleå, to test their durability. Six concepts were narrowed down to a final package, which clearly exhibits the prop-erties of the material. It was designed with the aim for easy folding and packing, and to create a positive unboxing experience for the end customer.

This master thesis project was a part of the education Master of science in Industrial Design Engineering at Luleå University of Technology with the mission of developing a work desk that suits in to the client company NoMoreBoots range of ski rental products. The background of the project was that work desks that are used mainly with the purpose of adjusting alpine ski bindings in ski rental shops often are primitive home constructions and other manufacturers work desks with the same purpose do not have enough advantages compared to the self-built ones to be worth the extra costs. With a new kind of tool introduced in the industry that facilitates the adjustments of alpine ski bindings came an opportunity to design the work desk in a new way. The work process has followed the user-centered design framework Double Diamond which consists of the phases: discover, define, develop and deliver. After exploring of the context with interviews and benchmarking, the projects main focus became at the ergonomic conditions and how it could be improved for the staff as it was the need identified that had the most protentional of improvements for the user. Literature studies, different types of idea generating methods and evaluations have been conducted to come up with a result that meet the needs of the users. The project resulted in a CAD model of a compact work desk that has a height adjustment mechanisk to enable the user to work with a good ergonomic position in several different work tasks.

This project is a master theses in Industrial Design Engineering written during the autumn of 2017 at Luleå University of Technology and Liko-Hill-Rom in Alvik, Luleå. Liko Hill-Rom is a world-leading company that manufactures and develops patient lifts, slings, mobile lifts, etc. to customers around the world. Liko’s Ovearhead lift system is a system used for lifting and moving disabled people, for example at homes for the elderly, schools and habilitation, hospitals or at home.This project is a development process that concerns the vertical support in Liko Hill-Rom’s Overhead System. The vertical supports are the part that attaches the entire overhead system to the ceiling and our task has been to create a new or developed concept on today’s vertical support. Since these vertical supports are attached to a rail, we needed to create a good interface between these two parts. In order to achieve this, we have collaborated with another group whose task has been to develop the rails in this Overhead. Today, Liko Hill-Rom’s Overhead Lift system is a major part of Liko Hill-Rom’s product portfolio, which is in need of improvements, especially the vertical supports, in order to meet customer and business needs.The goal of our project has been to deliver a smarter and more cost-effective solution of the vertical supports and at the same time maintaining the same reliability as today’s system. Liko Hill-Rom’s current assortment consists of many different variants of vertical supports. By reducing the number of these, can contribute to a more profitable concept “one that fits all”, which will make the design and installation more rapid.The project process was based on a Stage-gate process which is influenced from Liko Hill-Rom’s internal guidelines for a product development process. The stakeholders is based on users and experts in the field and these have been involved in the project process to ensure a good design for all. The project has also been built on a number of scientific theories such as ergonomics, semiotics, affordance and usability, to ensure that the result of the project was based with scientific support.Throughout the process different design methods have been performed, in order to create a concept that fulfills the needs and requirements from our stakeholders. We have for instances created full-scale prototypes in order to develop, evaluate and improve our concept throughout this project. In order to ensure that this concept could withstand the load requirements that Liko Hill-Rom´s product requires, we also perform both mathematical and finite element calculations.The result is a new concept that will replace all 9 adjustable vertical support included in the Liko Hill-Rom system today. The design of the new concept will be considerably more flexible because the majority of the components will be universal. This means that our created concept will be more cost-effective compared to today’s vertical support.

Northern Sweden is in the middle of a major transition, a green transition. As large industries are being established and companies are accelerating, the supply of skills must be solved. The regional development strategy Norrbotten 2030 was developed in 2019 with the vision of Norrbotten becoming Sweden’s most welcoming and innovative county. To succeed in recruiting is one thing, but if we don’t welcome and include people moving to Luleå into the society, Luleå risk becoming a fly-in-fly-out city. This bachelor’s thesis has been carried out in Industrial Design Engineering at Luleå University of Technology to design a service that will maximize the impact of recruitment in Luleå, making people who move here, want to stay. The project has been carried out in collaboration with Brightnest.  To ensure a continuous focus on the user's experiences and needs a human-centred design process has been followed, with a focus on co-creation together with the users and stakeholders. Through interviews and workshops, the users and stakeholders have been invited to every part of the process. Through creative methods, such as analogies, personas and customer journey maps, the needs and dreams of the users have been translated into design opportunities. Throughout the design-process tests have continuously been carried out with users to ensure that the design choices are prioritizing the needs of the users.  The final design is a movement called Lulity – Luleå Community which consists of three components 1) This is Lulity – the movement, 2) I am Lulity – the ambassadorship and 3) Relocate Luleå. Through these components, social sustainability can be reached both for the users, the stakeholders and the society at large. Through This is Lulity all interested parties can jointly facilitate and ease the relocation process before a person has moved, during the first half-year after the move, and after the first six months. The presentation of the challenge and the design in this text contribute to awareness and a changed mindset among everyone involved. / Norra Sverige är mitt uppe i en stor omställning, en grön omställning. I takt med att stora industrier etableras och företagen accelererar måste kompetensförsörjningen lösas. Den regionala utvecklingsstrategin Norrbotten 2030 togs fram 2019 med visionen att Norrbotten ska bli Sveriges mest välkomnande och innovativa län. Att lyckas med rekryteringen är en sak, men om vi inte välkomnar och inkluderar människor som flyttar till Luleå in i samhället riskerar Luleå att bli en fly-in-fly-out stad. Detta examensarbete har genomförts inom Teknisk Design vid Luleå tekniska universitet för att designa en tjänst som ska maximera effekten av rekryteringen i Luleå och få människor som flyttar hit att vilja stanna. Projektet har genomförts i samarbete med Brightnest. För att säkerställa ett kontinuerligt fokus på användarens upplevelser och behov har en användarcentrerad designprocess följts, med fokus på samskapande tillsammans med användare och intressenter. Genom intervjuer och workshops har användarna och intressenterna bjudits in till varje del av processen. Genom kreativa metoder, såsom analogier, personas och kundresor, har användarnas behov och drömmar omsatts till designmöjligheter. Under hela designprocessen har tester kontinuerligt genomförts med användare för att säkerställa att designvalen prioriterar användarnas behov. Den slutliga designen är konceptet Lulity – Luleå Community som består av tre komponenter 1) This is Lulity – rörelsen, 2) I amLulity – ambassadörskapet och 3) Relocate Luleå. Genom dessa komponenter kan social hållbarhet nås både för användarna, intressenterna och samhället i stort. Genom This is Lulity kan alla intressenter gemensamt underlätta flyttprocessen innan en person har flyttat, under det första halvåret efter flytten och efter det första halvåret. Presentationen av utmaningen och designen i denna text bidrar till medvetenhet och ett förändrat tankesätt hos alla inblandade.

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Conducting laboratory trials is crucial for the product and process development for a company active within the iron and steel industry. This is one way ensuring consistent high quality within the work and furthermore trustworthy trial results to present to internal and external clients. For a company with several laboratories involved in the process, a collaborative and supportive way of work is demanded. Having the laboratories using methods and routines of their own choice will likely contribute to several methods and routines being used. Evaluating their results may therefor add problems when it comes to consensus of conclusions from the trial results. This master thesis is about exploring solutions to develop a common work routine for trial results evaluations at LKAB laboratories during trials. It deals with the development of a prototype for a digital tool facilitating the employees through the process of statistical evaluations. The aim of the project was to develop this digital tool with high usability and ensuring ISO standards are incorporated toensure a safe, standardized, and common work routine to implement within LKAB:s laboratory work. The project followed a design process consisting of four main steps with a human/user- and activity centered approach. The steps were planning, context immersion, ideation and implementation. The involved phases were iterative and included methods such as workshops, braindrawing, user testing and prototyping. The goal was to understand how LKAB employees currently works with statistical evaluations and how to find and facilitate a common work way. To do this the user needs were at focus with relations to the functions that needed to be enabled by the tool. The users were involved during the entire process through co-designing and their ideas and opinions were highly considered within the final design. To ensure high usability in the prototype with a good user interface relevant theories in user experience and design principles were researched in the literature review. The project ended up resulting in an interactive web application prototype visualizing how such a tool for facilitating statistical evaluations could work and be implemented to ensure a common work way within LKAB. The prototype was limited to only showing the interactions of some of the steps involved in the statistical evaluations process dues to time limitation and other boundaries to the project. The design of the interface is associated to LKAB:s graphical profile and based on well-known design principles for designing a digital user interface. / Genomförandet av laboratorietester är en vital del för produkt- och processutvecklingen inom ett företag verksamt inom järn- och stålindustrin. Det är ett sätt att säkerställa genomgående hög kvalitet inom arbetet och därigenom trovärdiga försöksresultat att presentera inför både interna och externa klienter. För ett företag med ett flertal laboratorier involverade i processen är ett stödjande och gemensamt arbetssätt därmed önskvärt. Att låta laboratorierna fritt välja vilka metoder och rutiner som används inom arbetet skulle troligen medföra att flera olika metoder och rutiner används. När sedan resultaten ska utvärderas kan detta därmed skapa problem när det kommer till att dra gemensamma slutsatser av den insamlade och analyserade datan. Detta examensarbete ämnar utforska lösningar för att utveckla en gemensam arbetsrutin för statistisk utvärdering av analytiska data resulterande från laboratorieförsök. Det kommer avhandla utvecklandet av en prototyp för ett digitalt verktyg som underlättar och guidar de anställda genom processen av statistisk utvärdering. Målet var att skapa ett digitalt verktyg med hög användbarhet som garanterar att ISO standarder efterföljs för att säkerställa en säker, standardiserad och gemensam arbetsrutin att implementera inom LKAB:s laboratoriearbete. Projektet följde en designprocess bestående av fyra delmoment med en användar- samt aktivitetsbaserad approach. Stegen processen genomgått var planering, kontextundersökning, idégenerering samt implementering. De involverade faserna var iterativa och innehöll metoder som workshops, braindrawing, användartester och prototypande. Målet var att skaffa förståelse för hur LKAB:s anställda arbetar med statistisk utvärdering idag och hur man utifrån detta kan hitta och utveckla ett gemensamt arbetssätt. För att genomföra detta var användarbehoven en central roll i relation till de funktioner som måste kunna utföras med verktyget. Användarna involverades genom hela projektet genom co-designing och deras idéer och åsikter var högt värderade i slutgiltiga designen. För att säkerställa en hög användbarhet i prototypen med ett bra användargränssnitt utforskades relevanta teorier inom inom användarupplevelser och designprinciper i litteraturundersökningen. Projektet resulterade slutligen i en interaktiv webb applikationsprototyp som visualiserar hur ett sådant verktyg för att underlätta och guida statistisk utvärdering skulle kunna fungera och utformas för att säkerställa ett gemensamt arbetssätt inom LKAB. Prototypen blev begränsad till att endast avhandla en del av stegen involverade i den statistiska utvärderingsprocessen på grund av tidsbegränsningar och andra avgränsningar som projektet krävde. Designen av användargränssnittet baserades dels på LKAB:s grafiska profil, men också på välkända design principer för hur digitala användargränssnitt bör utformas.

If you are living in Sweden, you´re likely to consume around 15 kg textile every year (Palm, 2011). Of those 15 kg, 10.5 kg are most likely produced in Asia (IPCC, 2014). When producing textile, greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane are emitted. These greenhouse gases are a big cause for the global warming and are having a direct effect on people. 17% of all deaths in China 2015 could be correlated to polluted air (Rohde & Muller, 2015). If people knew the consequences of their consumption it´s in our opinion that they would consume less. More awareness leads to less consumption and ultimately less destruction. Organizations/corporations try to get people to understand but the message doesn’t seem to reach out quite strong enough. In this thesis another approach is investigated. The approach is about spreading a message through sustainable produced clothes with an appealing design, and encouraging consumption. By choosing our sustainable clothes instead of other non-sustainable options the consumer helps solving a social problem, which the (appealing) design is inspired of. The design is not only appealing but also designed to educate the consumer which leads to a more aware person who consumes less. We have worked with and Agile Iterative process which enable us to quickly see results and make changes. The project started with a goal to produce fictive clothes with our approach in mind. This goal was changed along the process and the final result ended up as a model. The model guides the user through two major parts. Part One is to enable a sustainable base for the production of the product where one step is to find a social problem. Part Two is an iterative process which uses the social problem established in Step One as a source of inspiration when designing the product itself. The model encourages the user to iterate the product design process around different aspects of the product. The model can be used by itself as well as a part of a developing process. Our recommendations for further work is to develop the model so it can be used for other types of products. / Om du bor I Sverige så konsumerar du troligtvis ca 15 kg textilier per år (Palm, 2011). Av dessa 15 kg så är 10.5 kg producerat i Asien (IPCC, 2014). Vid produktion av textilier släpps miljöfarliga växthusgaser ut. Utsläppen består mestadels av koldioxid och metan och bidrar till den globala uppvärmningen och har en direkt påverkan på människor. I Kina kunde 17% av alla dödsfall registrerade 2015 relateras till förorenad luft (Rohde & Muller, 2015). Om människor visste konsekvenserna av deras konsumtion så skulle de i vår mening konsumera smartare och mindre. Mer medvetna konsumenter leder till mindre konsumtion och i slutändan mindre förstörelse. Det finns organisationer som försöker få människor att förstå och agera men budskapet verkar inte nå ut starkt nog. I detta examensarbete har en annan vinkel undersökts. Vinkeln handlar om att sprida ett budskap genom globalt och humant hållbart producerade kläder med attraktiv design som uppmuntrar till konsumtion. Genom att välja dessa hållbara kläder istället för andra icke-hållbara alternativ hjälper konsumenterna också ett utvalt samhällsproblem som designen är inspirerad av. Designen är inte bara attraktiv utan är även utformad för att utbilda konsumenten vilket leder till en mer medveten person som konsumerar mindre. Vi har arbetat med en Agil iterativ process vilket har låtit oss snabbt se resultat och göra ändringar. Projektet startade med ett mål att skapa fiktiva kläder som var designade kring ett samhällsproblem dit en del av försäljningsvinsten skulle gå till att försöka hjälpa. Denna vision ändrades under projektets gång och resultatet av projektet blev till slut en modell som kan användas vid produktutveckling av kläder. Modellen guidar användaren genom två faser. I den första fasen skapas en grund för hållbar produktion, den hjälper även användaren välja ett socialt problem som designen senare baseras på. Den andra fasen är iterativ process där själva produktutvecklingen äger rum. Modellen uppmanar användaren att iterera designprocessen kring olika designaspekter som fokuserar på en utbildande design. Modellen kan användas för individuellt eller som ett komplement i utvecklingsarbete. Vid fortsatt arbete skulle modellen kunna göras om för att passa andra typer av produkter.

Today, backpacks and duffel bags are often designed with a focus on a specific area of use, which makes it difficult to use them on other occasions. A clear example where the differences are noticeable is between functional mountaineer bags and urban bags. It is not uncommon for people staying in these environments to have far beyond two bags in their possession. Overconsumption is harmful to the environment, especially when it is from an industry that is pursued with poor working conditions and dangerous emissions in nature. Therefore, multifunctionality and sustainable design have been of high priority when the products in this project were developed. In this thesis, two models of bags have been developed through a human-centered design process. A large number of user interviews and expert interviews, as well as a focus group, laid the foundation for the requirements and needs of the bags. Spektrum’s company values, as well as the identity of their current products, were interpreted to create brand recognition in the new products. Idea generation was performed through various creative sessions, prototyping, and through a workshop. Evaluation and concept selection was performed by representatives from the target group in the form of personas, as well as by Spektrum. Finally, detailed technical drawings of the concepts were created in Adobe Illustrator. The first model is a backpack designed to work just as well on the mountain as in the city. The other model is a duffel bag that can be carried both on the back and in the hand. It is also designed to perform well in both mountain and urban environments. Both bags are made of polyester from recycled PET bottles and the material is controlled and approved by the highly rated environmental certification bluesign®. The metal parts of the bags are made of recycled aluminum. Both models are adjustable to fit all users within the 5th to 95th percentile. The thesis resulted in the ordering of two alpha prototypes of each model, factory-made by my technical drawings. According to Spektrum, the designs have created great interest among retailers and company shareholders. Both models will, therefore, be put into production and released to the market within two years.