This thesis has been conducted as a case study for the brand Milda. It aims to investigate what Milda can do in order to increase the engagement and co-creation among their consumers at their website. Milda has a user-generated recipe section inside their website they want the consumers to interact with and contribute with content to. The study was conducted using a mixed methodology containing interviews with consumers, usability tests, a survey distributed on Milda’s Facebook page, a review of Milda’s current website, and a short benchmark. Furthermore, the study was based on a thoroughly made literature review over previous studies made regarding the subject. The findings from the study showed that consumers tend to be more willing to co-create with companies they can identify with and are passionate about. Engaged consumers also advocates the brand and connects new consumers to its products. Presence from the company in co-creation processes is highly important to engage and satisfy the consumers. Social aspects in form of communication and interaction with other users are main driving factors for engagement in digital media. For Milda to increase the amount of content at their website shared by their consumers, they have to make some improvements with the site in order to provide a better user experience. Since the social aspect is important to gain engaged consumers, Milda also has to increase the traffic to the site.

Detta examensarbete presenterar en rapport som utforskar användares inställning till mikro-platsmedeveten mobil marknadsföring och hur den upplevs. Detta har gjorts genom en användarcentrerad process där inledningsvis en förstudie i form av fokusgrupp ägt rum som lagt grunden för den prototyp som tagits fram. Prototypen är en vidareutveckling av Rabbles existerande erbjudande-applikation som utrustats med stöd för beacons. Detta har utgjort den tekniska grund som använts vid utvärdering av användares upplevelser. Detta har gjorts i ett fälttest i en matbutik i centrala Stockholm. Testdeltagarnas inställning till marknadsföringen var positiv och de upplevde det som nytt och modernt. Resultatet berättar om användarnas åsikter och ett stort fokus har legat på deras förhållande till notifikationer i smarttelefoner. Åsikter om integritet gällande denna typ av marknadsföring diskuteras också.

Smarta klockor, små kroppsnära datorer som bärs kring handleden, ökar i popularitet. Smarta klockor kan visa tiden men även köra andra applikationer. Utmärkande för alla smarta klockor är deras lilla skärmyta, vilket ställer särskilda krav på utformningen av användargränssnitt. Syftet med detta arbete är att utforska hur smarta klockor kan fungera för att visa webbinnehåll och det görs genom att studera hur responsiv webbutveckling kan användas för att möjliggöra webbanvändning med smarta klockor. Experiment med responsiv webbutveckling för smarta klockor ledde fram till fyra prototyper som testades av användare. Under testerna diskuterades fördelar och nackdelar med prototyperna. Resultatet visar att responsiv webbdesign kan användas för att anpassa webbsidor till smarta klockor, men att webbsidor med mycket innehåll bör brytas ner i mindre delar och visas en i taget, något som inte ingår i responsiv webbdesign.

Today we live in an extremely dynamic world. Some of us were born in countries with developed economy, well functioning civil society and established country brand. Some of us live in developing countries, which are trying to do their best on international arena. Unfortunately, very often the latter do not have a clear coordinated vision of moving forward. This makes it hard for international society to grasp the concept they assemble. One thing is clear – developing, and often developed, countries need to build their country brands in order to get the attention and interest from the outside world. At the same time, there is a very clear trend of the world’s population migration towards social media, which is capable of bringing additional benefits. There are two important Research questions in this master thesis. The first one is: "What are the Essential Conditions for Creation of Unified Country Branding Strategy?". The second research question is: "What are the Necessary Components for Country Branding Strategy Implementation Applying Omnifarious Social Media Technology Resources and Potential?". As the incentive of this master thesis is to understand, describe, structure and build certain practical guideline for country brand strategy in a social media environment, different research methods and data are used for this purpose. The main ones are the synthesis and analysis, aimed at the procession and extraction of valuable information, as well as its’ conversion into part of the universal country brand strategy approach. Observation technique was also used to proceed with the research, since the country branding is an on-going process, which needs constant follow-up to gather the facts. Intended target audience for this master thesis are national governments interested in country branding and struggling to find a starting point for it, country branding agencies, as well as all individuals, working or interested in the field of country branding.

Many new mobile payments services have launched especially within Europe since 2012. Mass adaption of those new ways of payment is still far away though. Former research papers focused already on business models in forms of value networks to increase success and popularity of such services. However, the highly fragmented markets concerning consumer behaviour and the technological conditions were very often neglected. Therefore the thesis is directed to mobile payment services to improve their current service offering as well as potential partners in a possible value network. To highlight the importance of human behaviour in regards to consumer needs, a six months research period has been undertaken during and before the launch of a mobile payment service. The key outcomes of that research have been aligned with available literature on this field, to draw conclusions on how to shape and further extend a mobile payment service. As a final result, mobile payment services have to follow two strategies. First they have to maintain their flexibility by adjusting their service to different consumer needs and offering value added services. Second, by forming alliances in forms of value networks, as partnerships with long-established companies like banks, they will contribute to further popularity and further growth of mobile payment services. Due to the complexity of the subject, a list of further research can be found at the end for more investigations related to the latest topics influencing mobile payments.

Development of information and communication technologies of the last decade has had a significant impact on how people communicate, consume information and deal with daily situations. The role of the Internet in today’s world seems to be irreplaceable; however, to be a part of the new information society, digital skills and access to technology are required. Among other groups, majority of the seniors are having difficulties to adapt to the new technologies and lack access to it. This social group would greatly benefit from opportunities digital media offers, as it could provide potential of longer independent living and more convenience and entertainment in daily life. Unfortunately, the digital divide prevents seniors from utilizing the benefits that are available for the rest of the society. Despite the advantages, an age associated digital divide is still very topical in many countries, including Latvia. This study explores the reasons behind the digital divide in Latvia and examines the needs of seniors that could be supported by development of digital skills and access to digital technologies. The work is based on the theoretical background and uses both qualitative and quantitative material collected from seniors and experts in the field. The results showed that the most influential reasons behind age associated digital divide in Latvia are financial instability, lack of digital skills and motivation. Latvia is one of the most developed countries in the information and communication technologies field, and has advanced online services, which could be successfully used by seniors; however group’s interests are largely ignored as there are few opportunities to acquire digital skills. Based on these findings three solutions are developed to help improve with the situation.

The automotive industry has been an integral element of global economy for many decades and has withstood economic downturns by being able to shift their processes along with market needs. With the addition of new innovations in the field of ICT, the automotive industry has addressed the need to restructure to stay afront of customers‘ expectation. Internet of Things and Big Data have advanced to where connected solutions are possible to provide value opportunities in many industries including automotives with the entrance of connected vehicles. This thesis aims to investigate the extent that connected services could be applied to the downstream automotive supply chain as a viable long-term business solution. A door-to-door perspective was applied in order to identify the challenges and opportunities towards different stakeholders within this supply chain. Qualitative interviews were conducted with leading OEMs, Logistics Providers, NSC, and car dealers as well as quantitative analysis performed on car buying customers to gauge their opinions of connected vehicles and services. There are many opportunities for a viable connected service solution to offer additional value to each stakeholder including efficient supply chain management due to increased visibility, improved lead times, and operational effectiveness. However, with the complexity and variations in the supply chain it cannot be applied rapidly and requires all actors to agree to participation in a network that supports the IT infrastructures and fortifies information flow.

The introduction of the Internet and digitalization has posed a lot of challenges for news publishing industry, so as for magazine publishers. Due to rapid development of technology, most of magazine publishers are compelled to not only transform their print products into digital format, but also to exclusively create digital content and put it up on their websites and/or on other platforms and electronic devices. Also, users’ consumption behaviors have shifted to consume a lot of media in digital format. Thus it is crucial for digital magazine publishers to have a better understanding of readers’ experience and attitude towards digital magazines. The main objective of this thesis project is to look into readers’ overall attitude towards digital magazine. In order to realize the objective, a quantitative method with a survey questionnaire was employed as a data collection tool. The finding shows that digital magazine readers had slightly positive attitude towards the medium that suggests further development needs to be done from the product side. Hence, based on the finding I recommend digital magazine publishers to focus on offering values relevant to four main motivations that readers have for using the medium: more knowledge, entertainment, habit and low price.

Detta examensarbete beskriver processen för framtagandet av en ny design för det befintliga schemaläggningssystemet för räddningstjänsten. Ett av problemen med att schemalägga för personalen inom räddningstjänsten är att det är flera faktorer som måste tas hänsyn till. Några av dessa faktorer är vilken station de arbetar på, personalens kompetens, att det ska finnas personal på stationerna och arbetsroller. Syftet med examensarbetet var att skapa en ny design som uppskattas av de som arbetar med systemet. För att uppnå detta var de som schemalägger med och påverkade designen av systemet tidigt i designprocessen. Detta examensarbete innefattar en litteraturstudie, en förstudie, en intervjustudie, en fokusgrupp och två användartester. Syftet med förstudien var att dels förbereda inför intervjustudien med de som arbetar i schemaläggningssystemet och dels att få inspiration för framtida design samt funktionalitet. Intervjustudien var grunden till skisserna av det första designförslaget och sedan skapades en lo-fi prototyp utifrån skisserna. Prototypens funktionalitet testades genom en fokusgrupp med ett antal schemaläggare. Efter fokusgruppen itererades lo-fi prototypen och vissa delar gjordes om. Sedan utfördes det användartester på lo-fi prototypen för att se hur användarna interagerade med prototypen. Resultat av lo-fi prototypen utvecklades till i en hi-fi prototyp som även testades med samma användare. Den slutgiltiga prototypen blev en hi-fi prototyp som har tagits fram med hjälp av schemaläggarnas återkoppling. I diskussionen presenteras dels vad som gick bra med de olika utvärderingsmetoderna och vilka delar som borde ha förbättrats. Det diskuteras även varför den nya designen av schemaläggningssystemet blev mer användbar och hur bra upplägget var på processen av framtagandet av prototypen. Examensarbetet har bidragit med en större förståelse för användarcentrerad design och varför det är viktigt att involvera slutanvändare i designprocessen. Dessutom bidrog examensarbetet med en insikt i hur de utvalda utvärderingsmetoderna ska utföras och deras fördelar samt nackdelar.

To create a graphic sign for a live TV-production there are several factors playing role. Its functions and purposes create a challenging environment for HEGO Group's developers and operators who separately work together, at the office and the production sight. Facing a new season 2013 with the Swedish Let's Dance production the whereabouts of flaws within the software interface, designed for last year's season were noticed. A decision was made to introduce a new work method were the main operator and the developers continuously would work together to create a complete solution for the case. This thesis will therefor evaluate the new work method and hopefully give HEGO Group an indication if the new work method is a fitting process for the situation. By using evaluation protocols, prototypes and group discussions the new work method was tested which resulted in a conclusion concerning possible further graphic implementations at HEGO Group.