With the advent of novel digital interfaces such as augmented, mixed and virtual reality, the way we interact with digital artefacts is changing at a nearly reckless pace. The adoption rate within enterprise applications is racing, with mass adoption among consumers soon to follow. This paper aims to iterate a key question sometimes hidden within these rapid developments; are the practices used to develop these artefacts properly tested and evaluated as the best possible ones? In order to answer this, we will explore and evaluate how existing best practices adhere to empirical evidence, but also to experiment with potential avenues of alternative design methodologies. Once adequate conclusions are reached, they will be utilized to design a prototype/proof of concept to showcase just how aninterface/interaction made with the new considerations in mind can differ from those made with contemporary design principles. Upon evaluation of thi sexperimental prototype which utilized the user’s hands as physical, tactile feedback for interactions, respondents were overall positive to this method of interaction, despite some discomfort from the limitations imposed by this specific technical approach. Due to this, it is strongly suggested that development of XR artefacts might often be designed around these technical limitations instead of a truly best practice. This is why we heavily implore both further testing and experimentation as time goes on, since emergent technologies might lack these limitations and therefore enable richer, better interaction methods and experiences within XR.

Med pågående klimatförändringar och en fortsatt ökande konsumtion i Sverige, är det viktigt att söka lösningar på hur man kan påverka befolkningen till en mer hållbar livsstil. Den här studien undersöker hur produktdesign skulle kunna användas för att påverka konsumenter till att handla mer inredning second hand. Med hjälp av metoder inom emotionell design där användarens behov sätts i fokus, är målet att ta reda på vad man kan göra för att second hand ska anses mer attraktivt och få högre status. Teorier från cirkulär ekonomi och design för hållbar utveckling utgör basen för arbetsprocessen och bidrar med kunskaper om hur ett mer hållbart samhälle kan nås. Lösningen har till syfte att minska avfall och ge existerande produkter ett längre liv. Förstudien gav insikter kring nuvarande second hand-handel och identifierade behov. En följande behovsanalys och kravspecifikation utgjorde stommen i arbetsprocessen. Iterationer av idégenerering och användarstudier formade och utvecklade konceptet. Det slutgiltiga konceptet blev ett hjälpmedel riktat till icke-vinstdrivna second hand butiker. Hjälpmedlet är en app som är tänkt att användas som en instruktion- och inspirationsportal för hur man enkelt på olika sätt kan rusta upp och göra om inredning som annars skulle ha slängts. Detta då en stor del av inredning som skänks anses vara icke-säljbart och därför istället går direkt till återvinning eller brännbart avfall. Studiens resultat bidrar med idéer för nya koncept inom second hand-handeln. Det visar att personer utan tidigare erfarenhet av design kan använda sig av designmetoder för att arbeta cirkulärt och därmed bidra till ett mer hållbart samhälle. Det visar också möjligheter att använda design för att ändra konsumenters tankesätt och uppfattning om second hand. / With the current climate changes and a continual growth of consumption in Sweden, it is important to seek solutions on how we can influence to a more sustainable way of life. This study is examining how product design could be used in order to affect consumers to shop more home furnishing second hand. By using methods from emotional design, where the users’ needs are in focus, the goal is to find out what one can do to make second hand to be seen as more attractive and gain higher status. Theories from circular economy and design for sustainable development constitutes the base of the process and contributes with knowledge in how a more sustainable society can be reached. The solution’s purpose is to reduce waste and give existing products a prolonged life. The first part of the process gave insights in second hand-trading and identified needs. A following analysis of the users’ needs and concerns, plus specification of demands, became the framework of the following design process. Iterations of brainstorming sessions and user studies shaped and developed the result. The final concept was a tool for non-profit thrift shops. The tool is an app which should be used as an instruction and inspirational working portal on how to, in an easy way, fix home furnishing that otherwise would have been thrown away. This is because a major part of the home decoration that is donated is considered not possible to sell and therefore gets recycled or burnt up. The result is contributing with new ideas of concepts in the second hand-trade. It shows that people with no experience of design can be using methods from design to work in a circular way and threw that contribute to a more sustainable society. It also shows that there are possibilities to use design to change consumers mindset and perception of second hand.

This Research-through-Design conducted as thesis project within Malmö University Interaction Design Master’s programme is an attempt to bridge the gap between the quantified self and the subjective & collective experiences of the self-tracking for less normative ways of meaning-making of data. In order to accomplish this, it offers a feminist critique of self-tracking and an exploration of new features for self-tracking apps using provotypes to inform the HCI community.

In this thesis the idea of relationship-centered design is proposed based on a speculative design project which is grounded in an understanding of post-anthropocentrism. To facilitate post-anthropocentric human-artifact relationships, that don’t favor living actors over non-living actor, objects may appear to have a life-like agency based on needs and therefore must be empathized with which can be achieved through object characters. Through the discussion of materiality, object behaviors, and object characters, the philosophy of object-oriented ontology and the social-theory of actor-network theory are connected to concepts from interaction design and reveal that materiality, object characters, and object behaviors “meet” in the interaction of humans and artifacts. The phenomenological approach of the Research through Design methodology has shown how the applied methods, that were focussed on the perceived experience of the designer, helped to identify possible correlations of materiality, object behavior and object characters that might affect the human-artifact relationship. Further, the research identified possible implications of post-anthropocentric design, which suggests, that further investigation of how post-anthropocentrism as an approach to design might influence aspects as understandings of equality, consent, and consumption behavior which eventually might have an influence on socio-political structures.

Today, the world contains a large number of important non-profit organizations (NPOs) that seek to maintain the welfare of people and animals and to preserve the natural world. NPOs are extremely dependent on funds from the public which has resulted in severe competition between these organizations. This has also come as a result of the cut down of government support and a shortage of donations. Their lack of financial resources indicates that NPOs around the world face major challenges and are therefore in need of customized tools to increase their revenue and ensure their survival. With the purpose of increasing donations towards NPOs, this study aims to research how a media object can be developed and marketed in Bali to motivate tourists into donating money to the Bali Animal Welfare Association (BAWA) which is located in Canguu, Bali. By doing this, NPOs can use this research as tool for application within their own organization to increase their revenues.The media object that was chosen for this research was a poster, placed in the streets of Canggu, Bali and was selected because it has been shown that visual communication is a powerful tool for encouraging prosocial human behavior. The aim was to document how the media object affected levels of tourist engagement and ultimately their motivation to donate money to an NPO. A number of theories of motivation and behavior were used to form the foundation for this research. The methodology used included qualitative data collection by way of interviews, observations of local conditions pertinent to tourist interaction with media objects, as well as information gathered through a focus group involving local tourists. Research Through Design (RTD) was the framework that was used to structure the process for the creation and the testing of the prototype (the media object). The RTD included four phases, two of which were not completed due to complications involving the COVID-19 pandemic. The research concluded that the environment, attitudes towards legitimacy and emotional engagement all played a crucial role for the effectiveness and ultimately the success of a media object. Furthermore, it was concluded that there is a need for extended research on tourists’ behavior as well as consumer behavior, in relation to donors, in order to fully understand how a media object should be developed to motivate a tourist to donate money to an NPO.

Collecting memorabilia has been a longstanding practice as it evolved around cultures and societies. Despite existing research about preserving memorabilia, meaningful preservation methods remain unclear due to the individual and idiosyncratic nature of practices [18,22,40,43,47,59]. Migrants who collect memorabilia face challenges in preserving them due to unavoidable circumstances such as lack of transportation, physical measurements and weight of memorabilia. In 2020, 281 million people migrated globally, accounting for 3.6% of the world's population, and as this issue continues to grow, finding practical solu tions is crucial [36,38]. The aim of this study is to explore ways to digitally preserve memorabilia to maintain their material qualities and meaning across diverse geographical contexts (RQ1). The study also focused on understanding what objects migrants regard as worth preserving (RQ2) and how digital memorabilia can be designed to serve as memory tokens (RQ3). The research employed an exploratory case study approach, focusing on first-generation Sri Lankan migrants [11,30]. Qualitative data was collected through interviews and the use of 3D printing and augmented reality was evaluated through prototype testing using a research-through-design approach [29,58]. Results revealed that souvenirs encapsulates sentimental, economic and aesthetic values that provides a symbolic meaning to its’ owner and contributes to constructing their identity. Migrants were willing to try new technologies and augmented reality was recognised as a satisfying experience. To transfer memorabilia meaningfully among different geographical context, a holistic solution for memorabilia preservation was expected by migrants where physical protection of memorabilia is emphasized. Further research in this study involves utilizing photogrammetry scanning and 3D modeling to closely replicate real-life memorabilia and further evaluating mixed-reality user interactions such as augmented reality.

The lack of existing guides or recommendations to design for touch is the cause of an opportunity to create a more efficient process for people designing a touch-based system. Today the process is highly time consuming and leads to inconsistency between products which impacts the user experience in a negative way. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to create tools to help UX-designers or developers in the process of constructing touch-based systems with consistency in between platforms. However, challenges arise in consideration of the degree of structure the guide should give to achieve a general yet user friendly experience, specifically in terms of the medical imaging field. To fulfill the aim, the approach of Research through Design is applied throughout the process, with a focus on user testing with the users in healthcare to validate the pairing of touch gestures in a medical imaging system. The conclusion of this thesis includes how to generally use touch gestures in different fields and the process of deciding which functions to assign a gesture to. The knowledge is applied in the result of the thesis work, which is the guidelines and the information cards, that concludes how to support UX-designers and developers in their work with touch gestures.

As the world gets more exposed to natural hazards, new practices of response to crisis have become a topic that requires innovation. FindMe Tag is a device designed in partnership with Frog and Sony that provides rescue teams with information on victims’ locations and their medical conditions. This data is used to facilitate the stages of reconnaissance and triage by quickly hierarchizing tactical priorities and areas of intervention.  Through this design practice, we proposed to mitigate the impact of hurricanes and tropical storms in low-income countries by addressing issues that search and rescue missions undertake to locate and prioritize victims. The outcome of this project, apart from the FindMe Tag device, was a digital interface for rescuers and citizens to receive and communicate different information.  In this design research, I will present some consequences and opportunities of this technological development. The proposed interface designs centred on the usage of different communication patterns to balance aspects of transparency and surveillance that affect differently the stakeholders involved in crisis response. Rather than using technologies to surveil citizens and share this information with authorities, the outcome of this research focused on providing both users with awareness and agency over the information they are sharing and receiving.

As system environments become more complex, digital onboarding plays an increasingly vital role in helping new hires adapt to their digital surroundings. However, the user experience for new employees during digital onboarding in the workplace remains understudied compared to non-digital onboarding. In this Research through Design project spanning almost five months, we investigated the key aspects of digital onboarding that impact new hires' user experience and devised strategies to overcome challenges posed by fragmented systems. Through interviews and vast data collection at a tech company, “Company X”, in Sweden, we identified pain points in the current digital onboarding process. Creative methods were employed to address these challenges, resulting in the creation and testing of a high-fidelity prototype. Feedback from new hires indicated that several of their experienced challenges had been successfully addressed. This study provides valuable insights for improving digital onboarding and user experience in fragmented system environments.

We present a Research through Design project that explores design opportunities and challenges of a personal visualization tool in artistic settings. The research process includes technical material exploration, an approach where state-of-the-art enabling techniques are examined to inspire artistic design decision-making. We propose three experiential qualities of such a tool: uniqueness, memorability, and aesthetics. They also serve as the heuristics throughout the design and evaluation process, aiming for meaningful user experience of personal visualization. Furthermore, we present how proceduralism democratizes user-generated content creation, how immersiveness improves the overall virtual experience, and how various computer graphics techniques are combined to improve the accessibility, learnability, and usability of the tool. / Vi presenterar en forskning genom ett designprojekt som utforskar möjligheter och utmaningar för ett personligt visualiseringsverktyg i konstnärliga scenarier. Forskningsprocessen inkluderar teknisk materialutforskning, ett tillvägagångssätt där state-of-the-art möjliggörande tekniker undersöks för att inspirera till beslutsfattande i konstnärlig design. Vi föreslår tre upplevelsemässiga egenskaper hos ett sådant verktyg: unikhet, minnesbarhet och estetik. Dessa egenskaper agerar även som heuristiken genom hela design- och utvärderingsprocessen, som syftar till en meningsfull användarupplevelse av personlig visualisering. Dessutom presenterar vi hur proceduralism demokratiserar användargenererat innehållsskapande, hur uppslukande förbättrar den övergripande virtuella upplevelsen och hur olika datorgrafiktekniker kan kombineras för att förbättra tillgängligheten, lärbarheten samt användbarheten av verktyget.