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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
61

Ampiify : Opening oportunities on outdated electronics

Oko Mambo-Matala, Ngatye-Brian January 2012 (has links)
The disposal of electronic waste is becoming one of the growing problems that the planet is facing. Tons of electronic waste is dumped illegally to 3rd world countries. Consequently the local people in those countries are exposed to levels of toxicity that could cause them serious diseases as well as the degradation on the natural ecosystems. The electronic waste is perceived as useless by our society, and this project aims to challenge that idea by looking at sustainable ways of manipulating electronics.
62

Gestaltande av en mötesplats : Att förena visioner i Alby

Granefelt Laurén, Sofia January 2012 (has links)
Mitt examensarbete från Designprogrammet − hållbar utveckling, är en under- sökning av flera dimensioner. Det övergripande arbetet är ett platsspecifikt insamlande av framtida visioner hos invånare, kommun och kreatör. Visualiseringen involverar samtliga av de ovan nämnda parterna i skapandet av en ny mötes- plats i ett medialt kategoriserat miljonprogramsområde. Med denna vilja följer en diskussion om, hur och/eller på vilket sätt detta arbete knyter an till design och vilken roll jag iklätt den. Designlösningen är i sin tur en identitet och ett koncept till uppstarten av en existerande vision om Zero Waste Lab − ett hållbar center i Alby, norra Botkyrka. Konceptet går under namnet Pop-up park och syftar till att inbjuda medborgare och aktörer att ta del i byggandet av visionen.
63

Shop until you drop : En studie i konsumentbeteende och julmarknadens betydelse / Shop until you drop : A study of Consumer behaviour and the importance of the Christmas market

Karlsson, Hanna January 2012 (has links)
Syftet med denna uppsats är att genom intervjuer med tre medelålders kvinnor, ta del av deras upplevelser av Adventsmarknaden och friluftsmuséets Lilla Julmarknad i Gamla Linköping. Genom intervjuer och deltagande observation vid marknaderna undersöker jag på vilket sätt informanterna besöker en marknad och hur deras syn på shopping och service styr deras besök. Uppsatsen belyser hur de shoppar när de besöker en marknad, hur de ser på service och hur detta påverkar deras upplevelse. Slutsatsen av denna studie är kortfattat att de besöker marknaden, och shoppar på tre skilda sätt. De definierar och uppskattar service på olika sätt och handlar olika typer av varor. Vidare handlar det om hur tre kvinnor använder sig av marknaden för att passa in i en större gemenskap där julmarknaden är ett standardiserat val. / The purpose of this paper is through interviews with three middle-aged women, learn about their experiences of the Christmas market in Old Linköping. Through interviews and participant observation at the markets, I examine how the informants visiting a market and how their approach to shopping and services guide their visits. The essay illustrates how they shop when they visit a market, how they look at the service and how this affects their experience. The conclusion of this study is briefly that they visit the market by different purposes, and buy things in three different ways. They define and appreciate service in different ways and buy different types of goods. Furthermore, it is about how three women use the market to fit into a larger community where the Christmas market is a standardized choice.
64

A System for Service Blueprint Design

Wang, Yu-Wen 29 August 2012 (has links)
The service industry has become a major industrial sector in Taiwan. Service industry has some unique characteristics such as intangibility, perishability, heterogeneity, inseparably. These characteristics make it difficult for a service to be mass-produced, have consistent quality control, or have patent protection. In response to this kind of competitive environment, enterprises need rapid service innovation to enhance their value. Therefore, service innovation and service design are more and more important. The service blueprint is a tool for service process design. It can specify how service is provided, and support service process analysis. However, there is no generally accepted practice and software for designing service blueprints. This has hindered the enhancement of service productivity. In this these, we define requirements for service blueprints and develop a system prototype to show the feasibility of such as system. The service blueprint system can help visualize service process and identify potential fail points and innovation opportunities. It can be used by service companies to communicate service design with the staff, and find alternatives to eliminate service gaps.
65

Cross-device brand experience : Interactive brand elements in the Skype service ecology

Erhard, Peter January 2006 (has links)
<p>Many interactive products and services have made the move from stationary or desktop applications to dedicated mobile devices. Sonys Playstation has evolved into the PSP (playstation portable), Apples iPod is fully integrated with iTunes, Microsoft’s new media player is rumored to carry the Xbox brand and browsers like Internet Explorer and Opera can be used on pocket PCs, cell phones and Smart Phones. A very interesting example of this development is the global telephony company Skype that offers free calls over the Internet as well as instant messaging, video conferencing among many other things. Skype is making its way from the desktop to a wide array of devices, stressing the need for a unified brand experience. This thesis seeks to explore the different interactive aspects that constitute the user experience of a specific brand. Through listing the use qualities fulfilled by the services in the primary product and examining their requirements and dependencies in the user interface, this thesis proposes a method to foresee potential confinements in the brand experience when distributing an interactive product or service to a new platform. The thesis also aims at examining how the method can be used in the design process.</p>
66

Representing Future Situations of Service : Prototyping in Service Design / Representationer av Framtida Tjänster : Prototypande i Tjänstedesign

Blomkvist, Johan January 2014 (has links)
This thesis describes prototyping in service design through the theoretical lens of situated cognition. The research questions are what a service prototype is, what the benefits of service prototyping are, and how prototypes aid in the process of designing services. Four papers are included. Paper one suggests that service prototyping should be considered from the perspectives of purpose, fidelity, audience, position in the process, technique, representation, validity and author. The second paper compares research about how humans use external representations to think, with reasons for using prototypes in service design and service design techniques. The third paper compares two versions of a service prototyping technique called service walkthrough; showing that walkthroughs with pauses provided both more comments in total and more detailed feedback. The fourth paper also contributes to our understanding of how prototypes aid in designing services, by connecting the surrogate situation with the future situation of service. The paper shows how the formative service evaluation technique (F-SET) uses the theory of planned behaviour to add knowledge to service prototype evaluations about the intention to use a service in the future. Taken together the research provides a deeper understanding of what prototypes are, and their roles in service prototyping. This understanding is further deepened by a discussion about service as a design material, suggesting that from a design perspective, a service consists of service concept, process and system. The service prototype acts as a surrogate for the future situation of service. The thesis describes what the benefits of using surrogates are, and shows how prototypes enhance the ability to gain knowledge about future situations. This leads to an understanding of prototyping as a way of thinking in design. / Den här avhandlingen använder situerad kognition som lins för at beskriva prototypande i tjänstedesign. Genom den här beskrivningen undersöker avhandlingen vad en tjänsteprototyp är, vad fördelarna med att använda prototyper är samt hur prototypande kan användas för att designa tjänster. Fyra artiklar ingår i avhandlingen. Den första artikeln föreslår att tjänsteprototypande ska betraktas från perspektiven syfte, detaljgrad, publik, position i processen, teknik, representation, validitet och författare. Avhandlingens andra artikel jämför forskning om fördelarna med att använda externa representationer för tänkande, med anledningar för att externalisera i tjänstedesign, och tekniker för att göra externa representationer. Den tredje artikeln jämför två variationer av prototypningstekniken tjänstegenomgång, och visar att genomgångar med pauser ger mer kommentarer och mer detaljerad feedback. Den sista artikeln bidrar också till förståelsen av hur prototyper stöder design av tjänster, genom att den kopplar surrogatsituationen och den framtida tjänstesituationen. Artikeln visar hur en teknik kallad formative service evaluation technique använder theory of planned behaviour för att bidra med kunskap om att evaluera tjänster med avseende på intention att använda tjänsten i framtiden. Tillsammans bidrar forskningen till en djupare förståelse av vad prototyper är och deras roller i tjänsteprototypning. Denna förståelse fördjupas ytterligare genom en diskussion av tjänster som designmaterial och avhandlingen föreslår att arbetet att representera och designa tjänster innefattar både design av och för tjänster. Tjänsteprototyper fungerar som surrogat för den framtida tjänstesituationen. Avhandlingen beskriver föredelarna med att använda surrogat och visar hur prototyper stödjer möjligheten att skapa kunskap om framtida tjänstesituationer. Detta leder till att prototypande ses som ett sätt att tänka i design.
67

10/60: Make Gravity Visible : A social movement to challenge our society to move more.

Bui, Lynn January 2013 (has links)
Gravity plays a vital role in our everyday lives. It provides the development of our muscle mass which fuels our brain’s advancement and our ability to complete daily tasks. Yet we often take for granted the things we do not see. From hunting and gathering, chasing after prey, migrating from one place to the next, to growing and harvesting crops to long hours laboring away, we have felt gravity through millions of years in time.  Along with the rise of technology, we are witnessing the fall of our physical selves. Our lives have become busier, more stressful and our days behind a screen much longer. Within the past 30 years, gravity has been intercepted by the chair and the ratio of moving to sitting has been reversed. Instead of feeling this force within our legs and lower limbs, it has now been deferred to our fingers, buttocks and backs.  We spend the bulk of our days in a seated position, often behind a screen. Sitting has become such a norm that daily exercise at the gym is no longer enough to offset all the negative things done to our bodies in a sedentary posture.  We were programmed to move, but we’ve hacked our brains to think otherwise. Prolonged sitting is a serious issue that should not be overlooked. The challenge is to change a habit that we’ve acquired from an early age.  The numbers are staggering, over 1.5 billion people worldwide are obese.(WHO. int, 2013) 5.3 million die each year from heart related diseases and diabetes as indirect result of the chair, .3 million more than smoking. (Thelancet.com, 2012)  It is time to break the norm, adjust our perceptions, expectations and stop living in extremes and move towards moderation. It’s time to stand up and make gravity visible.  10/60: Make Gravity Visible is a social movement to challenge our society to move more, reminding people to be up and moving 10 minutes for every 60 minutes.  The goal is to challenge society to integrate movement within the home, work and societal environments through the support and influence of communal behaviour.  10/60 is facilitated by a website and a smartphone application. The website provides ideas shared by the community to help inspire movement into people’s lives. The app tracks a person’s daily physical activity levels and sends a reminder when he/she has been sitting for too long. How much a person moves is reflected by an avatar’s physical state as well as graphical data by the time of day. Challenges can be submitted within the inner circle of friends to encourage more movement.  The initial strategy around this topic was through the intersections of four subjects: human evolution, philosophy, behavioral psychology, and physiology. This concept was developed based on findings from foundational research, expert interviews, user tests, experiments and behavioral observations - in particular social influences and the underlying principle that motivation is different for everyone.  Awareness alone does not generate action. Motivating people to move more is beyond an individual problem - sitting is a societal and cultural issue and unless that is addressed, no long term changes can be sustained.  This project aims to inspire people to leverage their communities and integrate more physical activity in the home, work and societal environments.  Societal and cultural norms will not change unless we change together.
68

Diggin’ Independence: Women Working Toward Self-Sufficiency

Meier, Stephanie, Nash, Kelly 01 May 2011 (has links)
Women with young children are a growing population experiencing homelessness. Transitional housing services provide shelter and educational programming aimed at fostering the development of skills necessary to attain and maintain basic needs. Adagio Health’s transitional home, Healthy Start House (HSH) served as a case study in which to explore the intersection of design, service and social innovation. The metrics of success outlined by the county for HSH include attaining permanent housing and employment or education. Using a co-creative process, exploratory and generative research uncovered that the service had no clear route to assist the women to develop core competencies to meet the county’s metrics of success. Rather than create a new extension of the current service, this design solution focuses on amplifying the resources and infrastructure already in place to improve the current service delivery. The solution includes an ideal plan for the HSH staff to work with the clients to comprehensively develop their core competencies, and an expanded view of how a money management system helps the clients meet the county’s metrics. We hypothesize, through this system, clients will re-enter society smoothly, armed with the skills and knowledge needed to provide for themselves and their children. While the design generated much enthusiasm from all stakeholders, the concept would benefit from further testing and iterations over a longer length of time to understand if it can, indeed, improve learning and performance outcomes and create sustained behavior change.
69

Crafting situated services : meaningful design for social innovation with textile artisan communities

Mazzarella, Francesco January 2018 (has links)
The mainstream ecosystem has proven unsustainable in terms of livelihood, environmental stewardship, cultural heritage, and social equality. To alleviate these problems, a range of top-down strategies has been deployed, but they are often ineffective in addressing the specific needs and aspirations of diverse contexts. On the other hand, bottom-up initiatives started by communities also face organisational and resource limitations that prevent them from becoming resilient. Within this context, service design for social innovation has become a well-established human-centred, strategic and systemic approach to tackling such challenges. However, designers have put much emphasis on the use of fixed toolkits that result in one-size-fits-all outputs. Instead, this thesis argues for a more situated and embedded approach to service design. With this in mind, the aim of the research was to explore new roles, purposes and methods the service designer can adopt to activate communities to transition towards a more sustainable future. For this purpose, participatory case studies were undertaken with two textile artisan communities (in Nottingham, UK, and Cape Town, South Africa), chosen as relevant cases of design, production and consumption. As a result of both cases, the designer activated the artisans, previously working in an isolated and precarious condition, to become a community and outline a situated service proposition that embeds a shared vision for a sustainable future. Building on emerging anthropological approaches to service design, the thesis contributes an original methodological framework, which equips the service designer with cultural sensibility when entering communities, aiding in making sense of sustainable futures, facilitating the co-design of situated services and activating local legacies. In this, the investigation evidenced the diverse roles - cultural insider, storyteller, sensemaker, facilitator, and activist - the service designer can play throughout a social innovation process. Furthermore, the thesis emphasised that the mastery of the designer lies in the skill of tailoring his/her approach to specific contexts in order to craft situated services that are meaningful to the communities using them.
70

Designing Small Business: A User-Centered Study of Needs, Resources, and Tools

January 2012 (has links)
abstract: Industrial design is the practice of creating solutions by studying people and businesses. Originally centered on development of goods, industrial design uses methods rooted in human behavioral study, human factors, and strategic problem solving. As our economy and professional practice shift away from manufacturing towards a service-dominant landscape, industrial design must align its profession to formally include service design. The small service business setting is a microcosm in which the value of design and branding in business is magnified. This research reinforces design's ties with services marketing and business and is dedicated to finding solutions for the backbone of our economy. Micro-businesses with fewer than 20 employees often lack the sophisticated management, marketing, and strategies that bring about success. Despite the fact that 70% to 80% of small and micro businesses are service based, little research is dedicated to unique strategies for these small service firms. Research has shown that using strategic business design increases small business success. Given high small business failure rates, it behooves entrepreneurs to use intuitive planning tools that are appropriate for the dynamic startup years. When put within reach and context of small business owners, the tools used in design draw a clear map of insights into the "design" of small businesses. Through a literature review, interviews, and a new workshop method, the needs of small business owners and the challenges they face are used to design and implement an accessible, actionable strategic toolkit for small service businesses. This simple, interdisciplinary toolkit was designed with the goal of increasing the efficacy and likelihood of ongoing strategic business planning through context-specific, instrumental activities. The tools are shown to help a business owner form pragmatic, iterative problem-solving approaches that allow the business owner to plan in the face of uncertainty and find insights into her own business, brand, and services. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S.D. Design 2012

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