The purpose of this thesis is to examine the usability of the Umeå University library catalogue Album. The aim is to evaluate the catalogue in order to establish if there are any problems that could be solved by modifying the catalogue. The following questions are answered: How should a good catalogue be designed? Which problems are common when using a library catalogue? Is Album user friendly? Are there any problems that occur when using Album and how can the catalogue be changed to avoid the problems? To answer these questions I have performed a usability test in which five persons, all students, got to carry out twenty tasks in the catalogue and talk about what they were doing and thinking while doing the test. This method is a usability method called Think Aloud. After the test the users got to answer twenty interview questions about the catalogue. The material obtained from the test was analyzed and positive factors, problems and courses of action were picked out. The results of the study show that the hardest thing for the users is to perform subject searches. It is not clear what subject and classification is and the users don’t know how to search the Index. They also think it’s hard to know in which fields to search and which words to use. In this thesis I give suggestions to things that could be changed in Album to make it more user friendly and easy to use. Although there are some problems with the catalogue, the overall impression of Album seems to be positive among the users.

First-year students at Linköping University have developed a prototype that graphically visualizes a medical record in a new way. The customer of that project was the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Linköping University. They now want a usability evaluation to be performed of the prototype. The prototype is to be used by employees in the public health care and is supposed to be used on a small portable unit with a multi-touch interface. For this reason the prototype will be used as a complement to existing systems when the users work near the patients. Since the prototype is still in the design phase it is important that the continuing development is carried out in close collaboration with the users. The purpose of this thesis was to point out which usability problems the prototype violates and which needs it must satisfy. The purpose was also to examine how the users interact with an iPod touch and what they consider of using an iPod touch. Usability is created when human interacts with a product to achieve specified goals, where the product is easy to learn, effective to use, easy to remember, has few errors and is satisfactory to use. By early and continuously involving the users in its development a product is able to reach a high level of usability. In this thesis a number of well known usability methods were used, e.g. interviews, heuristic evaluation and thinking aloud protocol. All these methods are described thoroughly in this report among with a review of how they were implemented. Finally, these methods are being discussed together with the obtained results. During the interviews with the users a number of usability problems in the prototype were discovered together with the users’ needs which it must satisfy. It was also discovered that most of the users thought positive of working with an iPod touch. In the continuing development of the prototype these usability problems should be fixed in order to satisfy the users’ needs. / Förstaårsstudenter vid Linköpings Universitet har utvecklat en prototyp som på ett nytt sätt visualiserar en patientjournal grafiskt. Beställare av projektet var Institutionen för medicinsk teknik vid Linköpings Universitet som nu vill att en användbarhetsutvärdering genomförs av prototypen. Prototypen riktar sig till anställda inom sjukvården och ska användas på en liten handhållen enhet med pekskärm. Av denna anledning ska den vara ett komplement till befintliga system när användarna arbetar nära patienterna. Då den ännu befinner sig tidigt i utvecklingsstadiet är det nödvändigt att fortsatt utveckling sker i nära kontakt med användarna. Detta examensarbete syftade till att peka på vilka användbarhetsprinciper prototypen bryter mot, vilka behov den måste tillgodose, att undersöka hur användarna interagerar med en Ipod touch och vad de anser om att arbeta med en sådan enhet. Användbarhet uppstår när människan interagerar med en produkt för att lösa givna uppgifter, där produkten är lätt att lära, effektiv att använda, har få fel, är subjektivt tilltalande och där det är lätt att komma ihåg hur den används. Genom att tidigt och kontinuerligt involvera användarna i utvecklingsarbetet uppnås god användbarhet. I detta arbete tillämpades ett flertal kända användbarhetsmetoder, bl.a. intervjuer, heuristisk utvärdering och tänka högt. Alla metoder finns beskrivna teoretiskt i rapporten tillsammans med en redogörelse för hur de tillämpades. Slutligen följer en diskussion kring dem och det resultat som erhölls. Under intervjuerna med användarna framkom flera användbarhetsproblem i prototypen samt de behov den måste tillgodose. Arbetet kom även fram till att användarna över lag ställer sig positiva till att arbeta med en Ipod touch. I den fortsatta vidareutvecklingen av prototypen bör dessa användbarhetsproblem åtgärdas för att prototypen ska tillgodose användarnas behov.

The Mobile phone has contributed to massive changes in the way that human beings communicate with each other and is a technology that is a part of society’s globalization. Opinions differ in the area of user interface where some feel that mobile phones exclude users such as senior citizens or users with an intellectual or a physical disability. Universal Design –‘design for all’, is a vision that intends to bring about settings, products and services that suits as many people as possible irrespective of an individual’s needs and prospects. The criteria for ‘design for all’ are among other things flexibility, user friendliness, comprehensibility and a high tolerance for mistakes. The purpose of this essay is to investigate the mobile phones graphic user-interface from the theory of a universal design. From this general purpose the study look more closely at senior citizens perspective of mobile phones graphic user-interface. A qualitative study in the form of 4 interviews was used. All of the individuals that participated in the study felt that the mobile phone is a very good and beneficial invention. Mobile phones bring about a feeling of security and safety since it is felt that is always possible to reach family and friends in the event of a crisis. It is difficult to provide a interface that is Universal, because every individual is unique. Every individual has a different opinion on what is Universal Design and what is not. People have different needs of using the mobile phone and that’s one of the reasons why it’s difficult to provide a universal design of the graphical user interface of a mobile phone.

The introduction of computers in working life has changed the very nature of many jobs and the entire work situation for a great number of people. How has this affected the individual´s health and well being? With the large increase in the use of computers we have witnessed an increase in reports on negative effects on users´health. The puropose of this thesis is to describe a number of studies on health effects of office computerisation conducted over a period of 20 years. The emphasis of the early studies was on psychosocial factors and stress effects while the focus in the more recent studies was to take into account occupational health in software development. The following conclusions have been drawn: We still face severe problems concerning the computer users´health and work environment. Much of the negative health effects are associated with stress. The introduction of new computer systems can result in an increase in various work-related health risks. These risks are related to several interacting factors, with two of the more important factors being work organisation and contents and design ot the computer system. Current methods, models and tools for system development are insufficient to prevent work environment and health problems encountered in administrative case handling work. To counteract these problems more attention needs to be given to social and organisational factors during system development.

Since the use of computers and IT systems has become an essential part of many people’s daily work, the quality of IT systems’ is becoming more important for efficient, healthy and sustainable work. It has often been argued that the full potential of a new, supportive IT system seldom is achieved, because – despite implementation of the new system - outdated work procedures are still being preserved. We can also see an increase in occupational health problems that are related to the use of poorly designed IT systems. This thesis addresses the questions of how to create a process for developing a sustainable, IT- supported work for the future and how to provide a solid foundation for the development of IT systems. What underlying perspectives should be applied and how can such a process be carried out in practice? Utilizing an action research approach inspired by participatory design methods, a user-centred seminar process called the Vision Seminar Process (VSP) has been developed to address these questions. Observations are presented from three cases in which the VSP has contributed to the organizations’ development and during which the Vision Seminar Process itself continued to evolve. The process provides a framework where practitioners and designers cooperate in the design of both sustainable work and usable IT systems. It is of central importance that a reflective in-depth analysis of users’ work practices is carried out, that their entire work situation and organization is questioned and discussed, and that the design process is carried out with a focus on healthy and sustainable work. Underlying perspectives that advocate a focus on a future work are essential for the successful implementation of the process, in that IT should be the engine that drives the development of work and creates the conditions for a healthy, sustainable work.

Internet in recent years has changed quite a lot, usual static user interfaces poorly satisfy user's requirements or do not at all. That is why there is a need to analyze a new breed of internet presentation-level technique – rich internet applications (RIA). Main RIA technologies and several internet projects were analyzed in this thesis. Macromedia Flash technology was chosen because of its flexibility, multiplatform implementation, rich user experience, good integration among various server technologies. An experimental system named Ferry transport booking system was built using Macromedia Flash technology and implemented with Microsoft server technologies. Experimental research of this project is described; a comparative analysis of rich internet application and simple static interface advantages is provided.

In my teaching and software development practice, I realized that most applications with human-computer interaction do not respond to users’ emotional needs. The dualism of reason and emotion as two fairly opposite entities that dominated Western philosophy was also reflected in software design. Computing was originally intended to provide applications for military and industrial activities and was primarily associated with cognition and rationality. Today, more and more computer applications interact with users in very complex and sophisticated ways. In human-computer interaction, attention is given to issues of usability and user modeling, but techniques to emotionally engage users or respond to their emotional needs have not been fully developed, even as specialists like Klein, Norman and Picard argued that machines that recognize and express emotions respond better and more appropriately to user interaction (Picard, 1997; Picard & Klein, 2002; Norman, 2004). This study investigated emotion from designers’ perspectives and tentatively concludes that there is little awareness and involvement in emotional design in the IT community. By contrast, participants in this study (36 IT specialists from various fields) strongly supported the idea of emotional design and confirmed the need for methodologies and theoretical models to research emotional design. Based on a review of theory, surveys and interviews, I identified a set of themes for heuristics of emotional design and recommended future research directions. Attention was given to consequences; participants in this study raised issues of manipulation, ethical responsibilities of designers, and the need for regulations, and recommended that emotional design should carry standard ethical guidelines for games and any other applications. The research design utilized a mixed QUAN-qual methodological model proposed by Creswell (2003) and Gay, Mills, and Airasian (2006), which was modified to equally emphasize both quantitative and qualitative stages. An instrument in the form of a questionnaire was designed, tested and piloted in this study and will be improved and used in future research.

Die Gestaltung von nutzerfreundlichen Verkaufsverpackungen ist laut verschiedenen Studien durchgehend nicht optimal gewährleistet. Neben einer fehlenden Sensibilisierung der Verpackungshersteller für die Nutzerfreundlichkeit als Wettbewerbsfaktor, liegt dies vor allem an fehlenden Entwicklungsinstrumenten für die Praxis. Dieser Beitrag beschreibt das Vorgehen zur Entwicklung eines Richtlinien- und Prüfkataloges, mit dessen Anwendung der Weg zur Entwicklung nutzerfreundlicher Verkaufsverpackungen geebnet werden soll.

Academic libraries are increasingly collecting e-books, but little research has investigated how students use e-books compared to print texts. This study used a prompted think-aloud method to gain an understanding of the information retrieval behavior of students in both formats. Qualitative analysis identified themes that will inform instruction and collection practices. / Selinda Adelle Berg, Clinical Medicine Librarian, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada, sberg@uwindsor.ca; Kristin Hoffmann, Head, Research & Instructional Services, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, khoffma8@uwo.ca; Diane Dawson, Natural Sciences Liaison Librarian, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, diane.dawson@usask.ca

Nurses at a haemodialysis clinic are required to handle complex technological equipment in a stressful environment, with the patients’ lives at risk. A training needs analysis (TNA) that was made at Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge in 2010 identifies the nurses’ need to practice alarm situations in the safe environment of a computer-based training simulator. This project builds on the conclusions of the TNA and the aim is to evaluate the concept of a training simulator by developing and evaluating a prototype program. The simulation model used is the prototype is based on a problem solving approach with virtual patient scenarios. During the entire development process continuous input has been gathered from nurses who work with dialysis. The project was completed by structured user test focusing on evaluating the usability and realism of the prototype. The conclusion of the project is that nurses working with dialysis need to practice alarm situations and that a training simulator could meet this need. The report is written in English.