This case study described how a simple, low cost survey of library users was conducted at the Engineering Library of the University of Saskatchewan in order to better understand user needs and prepare for the service and space planning. The results show that students wanted more computers, more group and individual study space, and longer library hours. Based on the results, quick actions have been taken. The results also provided valuable information for the planning of the rejuvenation of the Engineering Library. Allowing each member of the team to showcase their talents, this project was a great team building exercise, and resulted a stronger , more cohesive working environment.

An essential software development tool, code search engines are expected to provide superior accuracy, usability, and performance. However, prior research has neither (1) summarized, categorized, and compared representative code search engines, nor (2) analyzed the actual expectations that developers have for code search engines. This missing knowledge can empower developers to fully benefit from search engines, academic researchers to uncover promising research directions, and industry practitioners to properly marshal their efforts. This thesis fills the aforementioned gaps by drawing a comprehensive picture of code search engines, including their definition, standard processes, existing solutions, common alternatives, and developers' perspectives. We first study the state of the art in code search engines by analyzing academic papers, industry releases, and open-source projects. We then survey more than a 100 software developers to ascertain their usage of and preferences for code search engines. Finally, we juxtapose the results of our study and survey to synthesize a call-for-action for researchers and industry practitioners to better meet the demands software developers make on code search engines. We present the first comprehensive overview of state-of-the-art code search engines by categorizing and comparing them based on their respective search strategies, applicability, and performance. Our user survey revealed a surprising lack of awareness among many developers w.r.t. code search engines, with a high preference for using general-purpose search engines (e.g., Google) or code repositories (e.g., GitHub) to search for code. Our results also clearly identify typical usage scenarios and sought-after properties of code search engines. Our findings can guide software developers in selecting code search engines most suitable for their programming pursuits, suggest new research directions for researchers, and help programming tool builders in creating effective code search engine solutions. / Master of Science / When developing software, programmers rely on source code search engines to find code snippets related to the programming task at hand. Given their importance for software development, source code engines have become the focus of numerous research and industry projects. However, researchers and developers remain largely unaware of each other's efforts and expectations. As a consequence, developers find themselves struggling to determine which engine would best fit their needs, while researchers remain unaware what developers expect from search engines. This thesis address this problem via a three-pronged approach: (1) it provides a systematic review of the research literature and major engines; (2) it analyzes the results of surveying software developers about their experiences with and expectations for code search engines; (3) it presents actionable insights that can guide future research and industry efforts in code search engines to better meet the needs of software developers.

This study critically examines the role of visitor use information in park management planning. Few park planning documents utilise visitor use information. This is thought to result from two problems. Firstly, visitor use studies have been plagued with methodological problems such as unclear objectives, lack of rigour in the survey design and lack of synthesis of information needs. These have resulted in data which are unreliable and at times have no direct implication for management planning. The second problem arises from the lack of understanding of the role visitor use information may play in the planning process. A case study, the Centennial Park User Survey, was undertaken to demonstrate how the inadequacies of existing visitor use studies could be overcome and to provide a base for future planning of Centennial Park. The survey data have assisted Management both in day-to-day decision making and future management planning relating to control of forthcoming events, responding to public comment, traffic management, facility provision, staff changeover, park staff work programmes and rosters, allocation of financial and staff resources, promotion of the Park, provision of interpretative material and re-allocation of users. By comparing the shortcomings of previous studies with the experience of the case study, specific implications for the collection and use of visitor use information in park management planning have been identified.

Web application frameworks have become a common part of software development, with each programming language having its own specific frameworks. However, choosing the right framework can be a daunting task when there are so many frameworks on the market and factors to consider. Previous research has attempted to solve this problem by evaluating frameworks based on several different metrics. While the results offer a way to rank the frameworks, they do not tell us much about the actual process of evaluating a framework, or why certain metrics matter and in what situation. This project aimed to answer these questions by conducting a literature review to gather information about the existing evaluation methods and metrics. Based on these results, an evaluation criteria was developed to provide an overview of when to evaluate what. Furthermore, a user survey was done to measure the usability of three popular JavaScript frameworks. Lastly, a controlled experiment was conducted to test the performance of the three frameworks. The results show that different frameworks have different strengths and weaknesses as they received different scores from the methods. Moreover, the results show that when choosing a framework, one has to consider which factors matter most as it may not always be possible to find a framework that has it all.

Unter diesem Motto startete die Stadtbibliothek Pirna in das neue Jahr. Gleich um acht Stunden wöchentlich wurde die Öffnungszeit erweitert.

Viele Studien zu Sozialen Netzwerken befassen sich lediglich mit der Untersuchung elektronischer Spuren und bedienen sich dabei der Sozialen Netzwerkanalyse als Untersuchungsmethode. Nach wie vor herrscht ein Mangel an Befragungen der Nutzer offener Sozialer Netzwerke wie Facebook, Xing oder StudiVZ vor. Obwohl in klassischen und neuen Medien häufig über diese Plattformen berichtet wird - vorzugsweise über negative Aspekte wie mangelnder Schutz der Privatsphäre oder Missbrauch von Nutzerdaten – besteht nach wie vor erheblicher Forschungsbedarf hinsichtlich Nutzungsmotivation, Nutzbarkeit, Nutzung und Mehrwert. In diesem Beitrag werden die Ergebnisse einer in diesem Kontext durchgeführten Online-Befragung von 133 Nutzern der Sozialen Netzwerkplattform StudiVZ vorgestellt. Interessant ist, dass StudiVZ vom Großteil der Nutzer vor allem zur Erleichterung der Kommunikation und zur Kontaktpflege verwendet wird. StudiVZ wird jedoch kaum zur Unterstützung des Studiums eingesetzt, obwohl diesbezügliche Funktionen auch zentral angeboten werden.

Viele Studien zu Sozialen Netzwerken befassen sich lediglich mit der Untersuchung elektronischer Spuren und bedienen sich dabei der Sozialen Netzwerkanalyse als Untersuchungsmethode. Nach wie vor herrscht ein Mangel an Befragungen der Nutzer offener Sozialer Netzwerke wie Facebook, Xing oder StudiVZ vor. Obwohl in klassischen und neuen Medien häufig über diese Plattformen berichtet wird - vorzugsweise über negative Aspekte wie mangelnder Schutz der Privatsphäre oder Missbrauch von Nutzerdaten – besteht nach wie vor erheblicher Forschungsbedarf hinsichtlich Nutzungsmotivation, Nutzbarkeit, Nutzung und Mehrwert. In diesem Beitrag werden die Ergebnisse einer in diesem Kontext durchgeführten Online-Befragung von 133 Nutzern der Sozialen Netzwerkplattform StudiVZ vorgestellt. Interessant ist, dass StudiVZ vom Großteil der Nutzer vor allem zur Erleichterung der Kommunikation und zur Kontaktpflege verwendet wird. StudiVZ wird jedoch kaum zur Unterstützung des Studiums eingesetzt, obwohl diesbezügliche Funktionen auch zentral angeboten werden.

Each year in Sweden, users in support services are invited to participate in a user survey investigating their perceived quality of care. Results of this survey on a municipal level have never been analysed. Therefore, the aim of this thesis was to use survey results from 2019 to investigate differences between support services pursuant to the Swedish Act concerning Support and Service for Persons with Certain Functional Impairments (LSS): daily activity, service home and group home. Furthermore, Self Determination Theory was used to consider the potential associations between the results of the user survey and the three basic psychological needs for self-determined behavior within the theory: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In addition, user-staff communication was analysed. For examining differences, Welch’s ANOVAs were performed. Comparisons between the support services were made for seven questions from the user survey. Results showed significant differences between the support services for all questions included. Post hoc-analyses revealed that daily activity differed significantly from service home and group home for all questions and had the higher mean for all but one question. Significant differences between service home and group home were found for two questions. These findings indicate that there is still work left to be done for increasing the self-determination of users in different support services on a municipal level. Potential reasons for these differences were discussed. Furthermore, it was concluded that Self-determination theory provided a useful framework for analyses of user experiences of self-determination as associated to the user survey questions.

Environmental problems are growing, and efficiency and technology improvements have failedto reduce them in aggregate. Sustainable consumption, the alternative to supply-sideimprovements, addresses consumer demand and behavior to reduce environmental impacts. Thisstudy attempts to determine whether the EcoRunner website tool can increase pro-environmentalconsumer behavior. To provide context for this interdisciplinary research question, an extensiveliterature review, focusing on economics and psychology (especially consumer science), wasconducted. The effect of EcoRunner on consumers was empirically evaluated with a survey. Theresults of the survey show no statistically significant changes as a result of using EcoRunner;however, this result may be due to the small sample size (n=6). Since literature review and surveyresults suggest that using the tool increases pro-environmental consumer behavior, rerunning the survey with a larger sample group might yield statistically significant results. / <p>www.ima.kth.se</p>

Die Humanzentrierung stellt den Menschen in den Mittelpunkt der (Weiter-)Entwicklung von (neuen) Produkten. Der Fokus liegt jedoch hierbei hauptsächlich auf den Menschen, die das betreffende Produkt besitzen oder nutzen. Nichtnutzung und Ablehnung wird im Kontext der NutzerInnenfreundlichkeit allerdings seltener betrachtet, kann jedoch wertvollen Input für eine Produktentwicklung bieten, indem mehr als nur das Negativfeedback von Nutzenden betrachtet wird. Dieser Beitrag befasst sich mit dem Thema Nichtnutzung im Kontext der Produktentwicklung und wie der Aspekt Ablehnung zukünftig eingebunden werden kann. Im Rahmen einer Fallstudie werden NutzerInnen und NichtnutzerInnen von Kaffeeautomaten über ihre Nutzung bzw. Ablehnung des Produkts befragt, um die Ergebnisse anschließend für eine umfassende Produktentwicklung aufzubereiten. Es wird untersucht inwiefern sich die Ergebnisse unterscheiden und welche davon für eine Produktentwicklung wertvoller sind. Es werden Vorschläge gemacht, wie die Ergebnisse aufbereitet werden können, zum Beispiel mithilfe der sogenannten Non-Persona, die das Konzept der Persona auf Nichtnutzung übersetzt. Abschließend werden Empfehlungen für die zukünftige Einbindung von NichtnutzerInnen in der Produktentwicklung gegeben.