To better understand information behaviour and how to make information delivery systems more usable, this dissertation endeavours to investigate how people search, manage and use information resources. More precisely, this research focuses on the information behaviour of e-learning students and how such behaviour can be used to improve the design of personalised information delivery systems in order to aid in the fulfilment of their learning goals. One direction for improvement is personalisation, which is strictly linked to user satisfaction and provides efficient and effective support towards the process of seeking and using information. Non-authoritative metadata automatically generated from the interaction of users with resources can be a practical solution to enhance personalised information delivery systems.In addition, the context of e-learning students is not exclusively academic, as they also develop their information behaviour in other contexts such as in the workplace and daily life. In the case of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, there is the opportunity to study the full context of the information behaviour of individuals focusing on the e-learning environment, but also including the rest of the spheres where they develop their activities. Furthermore, this PhD dissertation studies the knowledge, attitude and skills that allow individuals to informationally behave in a particular manner. The acquisition of information literacy may take place in one context and be later transferred to others. In terms of added value, e-learning universities should provide their students with the adequate level of information literacy in order to help them adopt the appropriate information behaviour for their information age. Overall, this PhD dissertation provides some indications towards a personalised design of information delivery systems for e-learning environments and for the generation of learning plans that are more adapted to the requirements of lifelong learners. In this sense, this dissertation brings about a definition of the elements for designing personalised virtual libraries and proposes some improvements in the description of the learning object metadata, based on the usage of educational resources. It also provides theory and experimental evidence on how to model information behaviour patterns taking into account all the informational contexts in which a user can develop his or her information behaviour.

This PHD is about design as a tool of interaction based in information systems, allowing not only to understand the relationship of design with the user, as also, based on User Centered Design, to create a methodology that solves real problems derived from its personal needs. In the case study, the work was based on People with Special Needs, which by their limitations spend much of their day sitting and consequently end up suffering from pressure ulcers. From the research methodology resulted an approach that in a first stage relates psychophysical data acquisition and processing derived from information systems, in an approximation to semiotics. In a second stage an application has been developed in LabView for the integration and processing of data relating to acquisition of user data and data regarding the characteristics of materials and prototyping processes. The result is a file that can be interpreted by CAD systems. The third and final phase, based on the interpretation of the data in the CAD system, allows exporting the information to a CAM system and consequently the production of a customized product through rapid manufacturing technology. The work developed resulted in an integrated system called "Core System" divided by modules that allows management of all information in real time regardless of the inputs of each of its sub-modules, allowing each of these changes to be reflected in the final result. The application is the result of research work that relates the different multidisciplinary areas, building, based on correlations and data validation by specialized technicians, information processing models. / Este trabajo aborda el papel como herramienta de interacción basada en los sistemas de información permitiendo no sólo entender mejor la relación del diseño con el usuario y, basándose en el Diseño Centrado en el Usuario, crear una metodología que solucionase problemas reales resultado de una necesidad personal. En el caso de estudio el trabajo se basó en personas con necesidades especiales, que por sus limitaciones pasan gran parte del día sentados, y por eso con el tiempo sufren de úlceras por presión. De la metodología de investigación resultó un enfoque que en una primera etapa relaciona la adquisición y procesamiento de datos psicofísicos en una aproximación a la semiótica partiendo de sistemas de información.