Artificial intelligence (AI) in mobile applications has grown in popularity, changing the way people engage with technology. AI improves functionality, personalization, and efficiency across a wide range of mobile applications. One specific group of apps powered by AI is period-tracking applications, which is the focus of this master thesis. These apps utilize AI for features such as cycle predictions, fertility windows, symptom predictions, health insights, and chatbots. The aim of this project was to evaluate the performance of these advanced features, leading to the research question: “How do users perceive and experience the AI features in period-tracking applications?” To address this question, an observational mixed-method approach was employed. The research began with a survey, shared via social media platforms from February 19th, 2024, to April 2nd, 2024. The questionnaire included 20 open-ended and multiple-choice questions centered on AI features. By the end of the survey period, 61 responses were collected and analyzed. During the survey period, four participants were chosen for follow-up interviews, but three users’ responses were used in the analysis. The survey results underwent statistical tests to explore the relationship between monthly app usage, duration of app use, and satisfaction with cycle predictions. Later, interview results analyzed by using thematic analysis were integrated to the walkthrough method while assessing the functionality, interface, and user experience of AI features. The mixed-method study offered comprehensive insights into users' practices and experiences with AI features in period-tracking apps, revealing the need for future work to enhance the performance of these AI features for better user satisfaction.

Studien har syftat till att undersöka hur individers känsla av säkerhet kan påverkas i ett smart hem. Hemmet, smarta hem (SH) och känslan av säkerhet har definierats med hjälp av litteratur som är relevant för respektive område. Den teoretiska grunden tillsammans med studiens syfte ligger till grund för den designstrategi som använts för att undersöka detta på ett relevant sätt. Studien har baserats på ett induktivt angreppsätt där fokus har varit att identifiera aspekter som påverkar känslan av säkerhet i ett SH. Datainsamlingen har skett med hjälp av en enkät samt en fokusgrupp. Studien har identifierat fynd som resulterat i två övergripande aspekter vilket är kontroll samt tillit till systemet. Dessa aspekter består av sju mer specifika definitioner, vilket kan ligga till grund för fortsatt forskning kring hur SH påverkar de som bor i dem.

Mängden dejtingapplikationer för mobila enheter ökar stadigt och i Sverige dominerar Tinder som den mest populära mobila dejtingapplikationen. Matchningsprocessen på Tinder har dock fått motstå en del kritik då gränssnittet gör det väldigt enkelt att göra misstag. Syftet med det här examensarbetet är att undersöka matchningsprocessen på den mobila dejtingapplikation Tinder för att skapa ett nytt koncept med hjälp av metoden Konceptdriven designforskning. Med hjälp av Konceptdriven designforskning blir det nya konceptet utarbetat enligt en metodologisk guide där författaren jobbar med att granska kritik och teoretiskt förankra det mot en forskningsbakgrund för att hitta lösningar som förbättrar användbarheten. Arbetet leds av frågeställningen ”Hur kan matchningsprocessen på Tinder teoretiskt förankras och konceptualiseras i syfte att främja användarupplevelsen?” Författaren skapar en design för att visa det nya konceptet i sin helhet och testar det nya konceptet mot etablerade Tinderanvändare för att utvärdera användarupplevelsen. Resultatet visar att deltagarna ansåg att det nya konceptet är lättförståeligt, att det minskar antalet misstag vid matchningsprocessen och att det nya konceptet är mer användbart än Tinder. Det nya konceptet behåller stommen av Tinder men justerar applikationen utifrån kritik för att erbjuda en bättre användbarhet genom att luta alla ändringar mot en forskningsbakgrund med designprinciper och designriktlinjer för god användbarhet. I slutsatsen presenteras ett nytt koncept som är teoretiskt förankrat i tidigare forskning och som främjar användarupplevelsen genom att erbjuda ett gränssnitt som är mer användbart än det gränssnitt som Tinder idag erbjuder. / The amount of mobile dating applications are steadily rising and Tinder dominates as the most popular mobile dating application in Sweden. However, the matching process of Tinder has been criticized as the interface makes it very easy for the users to make mistakes. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the matching process of the mobile dating application Tinder and create a new concept using the method Concept-driven design research. With the help of Concept-driven design research the new concept is being developed according to a methodological guide where the author is working to review criticism and set it against a research background to find solutions that improve usability. The author creates a design to show the concept in its entirety and test the concept against established Tinder users to evaluate the user experience of the new concept. As a result, the participants felt that the new concept was easy to understand, that it reduced the number of mistakes during the matching process and that the new concept was more useful than Tinder. The new concept keeps the backbone of Tinder but adjusts the application based on criticism to provide a better usability by basing all the changes on a scientific background with design principles and design guidelines for good usability. The conclusion presents a new concept based on a research background that promotes the user experience by offering an interface that is more useable than the interface offered by Tinder today.

Characteristic for upcoming technology is that it is growing, constantly developing and fast implemented in people's lives. Augmented reality (AR) is one of these technologies and more companies are implementing AR in their daily operations. AR can be described as a large amount of data, being transformed into images that are attached to the real world. The technique takes digital images and applies it to the reality through a mobiles camera lens. When used for mobile application it is called mobile augmented reality (MAR). MAR applications are expected to be as successful as smartphones was when it was first released. The revenue is set to be over $120 billion dollars by 2020. Even though it sees huge potential, few studies are done on user experience (UX) and satisfaction for the end user. This information could be a crucial asset for AR stakeholders in the prosperous future. A generation of interest for technology stakeholders is the digital natives who are people born between 1980 and 2000. They have been brought up with technology and they are comfortable with adapting to new technologies and they are not late on trying them out. This study combined the three fields of interest, MAR, UX and the digital natives, for the purpose to develop knowledge of what factors within UX that digital natives’ value as most important for a MAR application. A quantitative method with an inductive approach were used to answer the research question. The researchers used a questionnaire to collect the data that was later analyzed with the help of Google Forms, Microsoft Excel and SPSS. Predetermined factors from a theoretical framework was presented to the participants of the study; perspicuity (easy to learn, easy to understand), dependability (predictable, secure), efficiency (fast, organized), novelty (creative, innovative) and stimulation (exiting, interesting). The study concluded that perspicuity, novelty and efficiency were the most important factors of UX in MAR applications according to the digital natives.

Researchers in the area of web usability dwell on the importance of simplicity in a website design so that users can achieve a specific task with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. If a banking website misses one of these characteristics of usability users may get lost in the middle of the website or become frustrated and “will seek information elsewhere”. This study assesses what are the main issues behind the current banking websites through a questionnaire with 74 participants the result of this questionnaire shows that there are still unsolved problems in the current banking websites that impacts the quality of use. This study performs a thorough theoretical study to find out more about the subject understudy and by combining together with qualitative interviews; the study comes up with a proposed solution to improve banking websites’ usability – by implementing a user-centered design. / Program: Masterutbildning i Informatik

In November 2012 Uppsala County Council (UCC) introduced an eHealth service, ‘My Health Record’, that gives all inhabitants over age 18 in Uppsala County access to their health records online. However, this service has not been evaluated before this study. We conducted an interview study, based on User Experience (UX) and Patient empowerment, with users of ‘My Health Record’ to get their opinions, and to see if and how the service can be improved. Our findings shows that the users are positive to the service and the aspects that can be improved mostly concern information and communication. Based on these results, we propose design principles as well as concrete design proposals which can be useful for re-designing the service as well as inspiration for similar projects. Additionally, an interesting finding is that the interviewees had very few opinions and complains on the actual interface, which could mean that the content (the health record) is so interesting that the interface becomes almost “invisible”. A conclusion we make is that UX and Patient empowerment is a good fit for each other, and that UX has advantages over traditional usability in services like this.

Notifications are known to effectively improve the access to information and draw the users attention. Social media seems to be a popular domain for mobile users. The users seem to receive a lot of different notifications of social media. This is the reason why the data gathering source of this study is Instagram. The user experiences related to notifications are divided, as some people experience them as stressful and others seem to experience them as affirmative. The user experience depends on the context, content and what the notifications are triggered from. This study is done to identify the problems with the notification design. As a result, the study showed that the most common problems concern how the notification are shown to the users and its content. Suggestions of guidelines are created for future designers to improve the user experience of notifications.

The purpose of this study was to develop a list of usability guidelines, i.e. a usability checklist, which can assist in evaluating the usability of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) user interfaces. Interviews were conducted to help understand their context of use and to find design focus points for the evaluation of MOOCs interface. These design focus points were then inspected for usability issues with Jakob Nielsen’s usability inspection method - heuristic evaluation - using author’s own set of 10 usability heuristics. The study reveals two main findings. Firstly, the context of use of MOOCs differs from a regular university course in the manner of how users perceive and approach them. And secondly, the usability checklist has to be adaptable and up-to-date in order to support the constant change of context of use of MOOCs. The combination of both findings is what makes this study not just another checklist, but a valid contribution to the understanding of MOOCs and the research field in HCI.

Thesis deals with the UX research from the perspective of UX professionals. The main objective of this thesis is to determine the point of view these professionals on UX research. The first partial objective of this thesis is to identify problem areas and the causes of problems in the context of UX research. The second objective is to identify how the experts assess the impact of efforts carried out in connection with the UX. The third objective is to identify the benefits of conducting UX research. Methods for achieving these objectives are conducting qualitative and quantitative research in the form of interviews and a survey targeted at 164 UX professionals. The contribution of this thesis is capturing of the views and experiences of these professionals on issues, impact assessments and benefits of conducting UX research.

The words and messages in apps are part of a conversation between people and their technology that we take part in every day. As technology becomes increasingly embedded into our daily lives, we form relationships with our devices and our apps. While we might think of these relationships as different, our behaviors and interactions with technology are still shaped by the social world, and these messages found in apps are based on existing patterns in face-to-face conversation. UX writing is the process of creating these messages in user experiences, which facilitate people's social interactions between apps and other digital products. Interacting with apps and other digital products is inherently social, and by using conversational language as a driving component of UX writing and Human-Computer Interaction, we can also cast User Experience (UX) as a type of communicative exchange between a person and an app, and therefore User Experience (UX) as conversation. Through qualitative interviews and usability testing with native and non-native English speakers, this research explores what type of language style works best for a global audience in these conversations with our apps and how we can strategically apply conversational patterns to improve the experience of users. Abstrakt Slova a zprávy v...