Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-12T15:59:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 arquivo4984_1.pdf: 2006892 bytes, checksum: 224264401a8274ab07b0eb4b22c3ec68 (MD5) license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / A tecnologia Web Services está se tornando a mais importante solução para prover a comunicação entre aplicações heterogêneas, contribuindo enormemente para o avanço na área de desenvolvimento de sistemas distribuídos. Uma conseqüência dessa popularidade é a existência de mais de setenta Web Services toolkits disponíveis para uma variedade de plataformas e linguagens de programação. Além disso, várias aplicações em áreas como, por exemplo, e-commerce, computação científica, saúde e finanças estão sendo expostas como Web Services. Dessa forma, o fato de estar sendo adotada por muitas empresas como a infra-estrutura para desenvolver seus sistemas, aumenta a demanda pela sua eficiência, uma vez que desempenho é um importante parâmetro da qualidade do serviço. O problema é que o desempenho de Web Services é uma questão em aberto, uma vez que sua eficiência foi sacrificada para prover simplicidade, interoperabilidade e flexibilidade. Dessa forma, os desenvolvedores deveriam avaliar as condições de desempenho das aplicações Web Services, pois sua ineficiência pode limitar sua aplicabilidade em algumas situações.O principal objetivo dessa dissertação é viabilizar a avaliação de desempenho de Web Services toolkits, propondo diretrizes que foram desenvolvidas baseando-se nos gargalos de desempenho de Web Services. A partir dessas diretrizes, foi elaborado um processo que tem como objetivo uniformizar a avaliação de desempenho de toolkits e facilitar a escolha do toolkit ideal para desenvolver uma aplicação. Também será apresentado o utilitário JWSPerf (Java Web Service Performance) que, juntamente com outras ferramentas, automatiza algumas tarefas desse processo, reduzindo o tempo e os custos necessários para sua execução

O design social é um tema que a literatura do design trata desde a década de 60, contudo até hoje existem lacunas teóricas e metodológicas que afetam a prática profissional e o ensino do design, reduzindo o seu impacto social. Neste trabalho o design social é entendido como uma área maior que engloba o projeto de produtos e serviços e, portanto, tem contribuição direta para o bem-estar e a qualidade de vida das pessoas, através da resolução de problemas sociais. O trabalho se sustenta em dois grandes grupos de dados: as abordagens de design social, reunidas a partir de levantamento bibliográfico; e os kits de ferramentas voltados ao tema, reunidos através de pesquisa documental. A partir de uma revisão de literatura sistemática e integradora destes grupos, o trabalho se propõe a reunir e organizar o conhecimento destas áreas a fim de gerar um quadro teórico que colabore para o incentivo à pesquisa e ao ensino do design, mais adequado à realidade de crises humanitárias, políticas e econômicas com a qual se convive em nível global. / Social design is a theme that the design literature talks from the 60s, but until today are theoretical and methodological gaps that affect professional practice and teaching of design, reducing their social impact. In this work the social design is understood as a larger area that includes the design of products and services and therefore has direct contribution to people’s well-being and quality of life, by solving social problems. The work is grounded on two groups of data: the social design approaches, gathered from bibliographic research; and the toolkits geared to the theme, gathered through documental research. From a systematic and integrating literature review of these groups, the study aims to gather and organize the knowledge of these areas in order to generate a theoretical framework to collaborate to encourage the research and education in this field, as well the professional practice, more suited to the reality of humanitarian, political and economic crises with which we live globally.

There are consumers who engage in innovation and who cocreate value together with other consumers, and with producers, in relation to products. This thesis has the purpose of exploring the nature of this ‘active consumer’ from a firm perspective, and thereby providing an answer to the thesis-level research question: ‘What are the implications of the active consumer on innovation and marketing practices?’ Four papers, drawing on research in the fields of consumer innovation and value cocreation, are presented that contain findings about the knowledge of the active consumer (Paper I), support (Paper II) and management (Paper III) of the active consumer, and challenges with the active consumer (Paper IV). The papers rest on two research efforts: a study of the video game industry that includes an investigation of a game developer and a netnography of its consumer community and a study of the entire development of a customer loyalty card by a leading grocery retailer. The insights into the active consumer gained from the four papers are analyzed against the thesis-level research question using an explanatory lens that is developed through the notion of practice, rendering a discussion about the implications of the active consumer on the scripts of innovation and marketing practices. The thesis is concluded with a discussion of its contributions and implications for innovation and marketing scholars and managers.

O design social é um tema que a literatura do design trata desde a década de 60, contudo até hoje existem lacunas teóricas e metodológicas que afetam a prática profissional e o ensino do design, reduzindo o seu impacto social. Neste trabalho o design social é entendido como uma área maior que engloba o projeto de produtos e serviços e, portanto, tem contribuição direta para o bem-estar e a qualidade de vida das pessoas, através da resolução de problemas sociais. O trabalho se sustenta em dois grandes grupos de dados: as abordagens de design social, reunidas a partir de levantamento bibliográfico; e os kits de ferramentas voltados ao tema, reunidos através de pesquisa documental. A partir de uma revisão de literatura sistemática e integradora destes grupos, o trabalho se propõe a reunir e organizar o conhecimento destas áreas a fim de gerar um quadro teórico que colabore para o incentivo à pesquisa e ao ensino do design, mais adequado à realidade de crises humanitárias, políticas e econômicas com a qual se convive em nível global. / Social design is a theme that the design literature talks from the 60s, but until today are theoretical and methodological gaps that affect professional practice and teaching of design, reducing their social impact. In this work the social design is understood as a larger area that includes the design of products and services and therefore has direct contribution to people’s well-being and quality of life, by solving social problems. The work is grounded on two groups of data: the social design approaches, gathered from bibliographic research; and the toolkits geared to the theme, gathered through documental research. From a systematic and integrating literature review of these groups, the study aims to gather and organize the knowledge of these areas in order to generate a theoretical framework to collaborate to encourage the research and education in this field, as well the professional practice, more suited to the reality of humanitarian, political and economic crises with which we live globally.

O design social é um tema que a literatura do design trata desde a década de 60, contudo até hoje existem lacunas teóricas e metodológicas que afetam a prática profissional e o ensino do design, reduzindo o seu impacto social. Neste trabalho o design social é entendido como uma área maior que engloba o projeto de produtos e serviços e, portanto, tem contribuição direta para o bem-estar e a qualidade de vida das pessoas, através da resolução de problemas sociais. O trabalho se sustenta em dois grandes grupos de dados: as abordagens de design social, reunidas a partir de levantamento bibliográfico; e os kits de ferramentas voltados ao tema, reunidos através de pesquisa documental. A partir de uma revisão de literatura sistemática e integradora destes grupos, o trabalho se propõe a reunir e organizar o conhecimento destas áreas a fim de gerar um quadro teórico que colabore para o incentivo à pesquisa e ao ensino do design, mais adequado à realidade de crises humanitárias, políticas e econômicas com a qual se convive em nível global. / Social design is a theme that the design literature talks from the 60s, but until today are theoretical and methodological gaps that affect professional practice and teaching of design, reducing their social impact. In this work the social design is understood as a larger area that includes the design of products and services and therefore has direct contribution to people’s well-being and quality of life, by solving social problems. The work is grounded on two groups of data: the social design approaches, gathered from bibliographic research; and the toolkits geared to the theme, gathered through documental research. From a systematic and integrating literature review of these groups, the study aims to gather and organize the knowledge of these areas in order to generate a theoretical framework to collaborate to encourage the research and education in this field, as well the professional practice, more suited to the reality of humanitarian, political and economic crises with which we live globally.

In this thesis we will discuss the subject of user participation in the development process of products, specifically video games, through a concept called User-generated content. Product development demands speed and flexibility in the development process and it has been suggested that managers should revise the process of product development to become more flexible and integrate the consumer in increasingly more steps of the process. Video games will often be modified after its release. In fact, it has been estimated that between 95% and 100% of the files in most software will be modified after its initial release. User participation, referring to behaviors and activities performed in a system development process, is a definite feature for websites that consider their content user-generated. Customers who participate in online video game UGC are actively changing games, modifying existing content and creating new content related to all aspects of the game bit by bit, while also contributing this content to others, usually over the internet through some sort of video game content sharing site.User participation is determined by a user’s ability to participate and his motivation to do so, the latter of which is the focus of this thesis. Two major branches of study can be distinguished from motivational theory; intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. The main purpose of this thesis is to examine the effects of motivational factors of intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and toolkits that motivate customers to participate in UGC for video games. We examine what effects intrinsic motivational factors enjoyment, altruism and continuance commitment, as well as extrinsic motivational factors rewards, future rewards, personal need and reputation have on user participation. The toolkits approach to product development is a common user-oriented product development methods in the video game industry, which allows users to modify and create content for games. We will also study what effects the usefulness and ease of use of these toolkits have on user participation. Conducting a quantitative study, we presented a questionnaire to members of four online video game UGC communities; Steam Workshop, GameBanana, ModDB and MODSonline, in order to assess users’ attitudes of aforementioned concepts in relation to their user participation.We have not found any relevant research that examines both motivational factors’ and toolkits’ effects on user participation in video game UGC. With recent turbulent developments in the video game industry regarding monetary compensation for UGC, we decided to put great weight on this area in this thesis, both through our review of previous literature and regarding the results of our study.Our multiple regression analysis showed that toolkit ease of use, intrinsic motivational factors enjoyment and altruism, as well as extrinsic motivational factor reputation have significant positive effects on user participation, while toolkit usefulness showed a significant negative effect on user participation. We also find trends suggesting the positive effect of continuance commitment on user participation, and, finally, a trend suggesting the negative effect of rewards on user participation.

User needs for a given product type can be quite heterogeneous. Segmenting the market and providing solutions for average user needs in each segment is a partial answer that will typically leave many dissatisfied - some seriously so. We hypothesize that providing users with "toolkits for user innovation" to enable them to more easily design customized products for themselves will increase user satisfaction under these conditions. We test this hypothesis via an empirical study of Apache security software - "open source" software that is designed to be modifiable by skilled users. We find that heterogeneity of need is high, and that many Apache users are dissatisfied with standard security functionality on offer. We also find that users creating their own software modifications are significantly more satisfied than are non-innovating users. We conclude by suggesting that the "toolkits for user innovation" approach to enhancing user satisfaction might be generally applicable to markets characterized by heterogeneous user needs. (authors' abstract)

No description available.

This dissertation in industrial design focuses on the gap between the context of design and the context of use. It aims to open up design to the layperson and investigate an active role for the layperson in the design of everyday products. Over the last century, the industrial paradigm has institutionalised and professionalised many practices, including product design. A binary spectrum of production and consumption has been established with distinct roles for the professional designer, who engages in production, and the consumer, who engages in consumption. However, this clear distinction has been blurred recently and the consumer, or layperson, is no longer involved only in consumption, but also in production. In this research I have explored and examined the participation of the layperson, or the non-professional, in design, which I refer to as lay design. It constitutes a shift for the professional designer from knowing what a future user would like to have towards knowing what a layperson would like to design, which is for most designers an unfamiliar way of thinking. I specifically investigated how the layperson can be involved in design through the use of so-called digital-physical toolkits, software applications where one designs in a digital environment and which outputs a physical product. Lay design is enabled by two developments: On the one hand, the creation of variable designs is enabled by computational design, and on the other hand, the fabrication of variable products is enabled by 3D printing. The two main questions that I focused on are: How will the roles of the professional designer and the layperson change when the latter engages in the design of personal products and how can designers develop digital-physical toolkits for the layperson to collaboratively create value and meaning? The theory that I drew on consists of existing approaches which involve the layperson in design, such as mass customisation, meta-design, and co-design, and I used the theory of technological mediation to analyse and discuss the mediating role of toolkits in lay design. I investigated the research questions through a series of studies, both analytical and experimental. For the experiments I took a constructive design research approach, which means that I engaged in the making of toolkit and product prototypes in order to obtain insights and an understanding of the subject. The main contribution of this research is a framework of lay design that consists of a set of principles and guidelines that enables the professional designer to develop digital-physical toolkits that empower the layperson to engage in the design of everyday products. Through the participation of the layperson in the design process, lay design constitutes value created by both the professional and lay designer, thereby eliminating the separation of production and consumption. The framework’s principles outline the basic ideas of lay design while the guidelines support the professional designer in the development of toolkits and their products in practice. Lay design is concerned with the layperson designing personal products and is therefore primarily self-serving. It deals with creating meaningful products by enabling the layperson to personify designs, meaning that the designed product cannot exist without its originator. This research established an understanding of design spaces and toolkits and of the roles the professional designer, layperson, and toolkits play. The implications of lay design concern the role of the professional designer, the way value is created, a shared accountability, and also the way designers are educated regarding the tool-sets, skill-sets, mindset, and knowledge.

Engineering Education experiences turbulent changes, both from government pressures and from industry demands on readdressing the requirements of graduate capability. Despite vast amounts of engineering literature discussing ‘change’ within the field, engineering curricula still maintains its predominant pedagogic model of dissemination to students as it did in previous decades. Technology Enhanced Learning in education has created new and flexible options in the delivery and assessment of teaching and learning, but uptake is limited and approached with caution within Engineering Education. This mixed methods research introduces an inclusive and innovative approach to Engineering Education assessment techniques utilising an integrated blended learning strategy to the implementation of Technology Enhanced Learning within engineering curriculums. The research explores and assesses the effectiveness of Technology Enhanced Learning and educational pedagogies within Engineering Education frameworks to enhance and develop student learning, digital literacy and employability. Preliminary research positioned the research, utilising observation and interview techniques to baseline current pedagogic practices in undergraduate Engineering Education against current literature. An alternative method of video assessment was implemented and embedded following a two year cycle of action research within a cohort of two undergraduate engineering modules. A prototype ‘toolkit’ was created using Xerte Online Toolkits (XOT) to facilitate student learning and support for the assessment. Additional techniques inside the cycles gained further qualitative and quantitative data via a survey and focus groups. Student learning and assessment results showed significant improvement following the introduction of this approach and validated the transferability of this technique into other educational disciplines. An industry based survey validated chosen research methods and provided a comparison of viewpoints on key issues surrounding Engineering Education against existing stakeholders. The research introduces a new innovative approach to Engineering Education utilising Technology Enhanced Learning, validated through positive industry feedback and student academic achievement and satisfaction. Significant improvements on student employability and engineering ‘soft skills’ are evidenced.