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Reading old handwritten documents can be a real challenge for genealogists, especially as some documents in Sweden are written in the old German alphabet that is not used today. Much research has been done on how to enable computers to read old handwritten documents, but computers have so far not reached the level of reading that expert humans have. The focus seems to be on the computers reading the document with or without the help of human experts, with the aim of making the documents available in easily read form. I have, however, not found any research on how computers can help non-expert humans trying to read handwritten documents. In this project I have focused especially on beginning genealogists as reading gets easier with practice, and you need the help more in the beginning.By conducting interviews and observations with genealogists I established that reading is an issue and that there are many factors involved that make it difficult to read. Among the factors that make it difficult to read are handwriting, foreign alphabet, unknown words and old-fashioned spelling. I designed hi-fi prototypes that combine elements of online crossword-lexicons, encyclopedias and a visualization of the word in the German alphabet. After testing these on genealogists I could conclude that the prototypes made it possible for test subjects to identify words that they could not otherwise read. Seeing suggestions of words in the same alphabet as the source word makes it easier to identify the correct word. The prototypes and test texts contained a very limited amount of words and further research is needed concerning how to order and choose among word matches in a large lexicon to facilitate finding the correct word.

Smart clothing is far from being adopted by regular consumers and worn on a regular basis. Most developments can be found in specialized markets and all of the few consumer products so far have not been commercially successful. The first part of this thesis illustrates why this is the case and presents a few examples of concepts that show the potential of smart clothing in an everyday context.The second part shows my own practical research into the subject and the resulting design concept. It follows a user-centered design process with participatory design elements and ends in a concept proposing clothing that can change color and style on the go. The concept tries to support a sustainable lifestyle by slowing down fast fashion and democratizing fashion design. It makes it easy for the wearer to create her own styles and to change the style on the go to adjust to different situations or different moods. The end result of this thesis is a prototype that serves as a proof-of-concept.

This paper focuses on how to design a childrens game to help them realize that they can have a positive influence on the environment. We present a detailed description and analysis of our work process from brainstorming to the discussions after playtesting our prototype. Playing while learning has been the motivation of our work which is divided into three specific topics: How to involve the users in the design process, what type of social aspects exist in our game, and the importance of a feedback and reward system in the game. We look upon earlier research and examples within these three areas. We designed our game from a user centered perspective to make the users influence and encourage a discussion and awareness about environmental questions in a way that isnʼt negative. While designing our game we wanted to shed a positive light upon a serious issue and bring the environment into the topics of play and fun. In our research we discoverd that focusing on small subjects and tasks the children started to discuss the complex theme of the environment. We focus on the interaction with the children and using their influence to make decisions in our design process. Involving them helped us to see that there is not only one way of learning. In this game, the users learned from engagement and discussion, which ended up being the most important part of the game play.

This paper investigates how physical prototyping modules can be designed to facilitate for interactiondesigners to visualize their ideas early on in a design process. As technology is getting cheaper andeasier to use, it has opened up the possibility for others than just engineers to build with technology.We see technology being more and more used by designers for building prototypes and testing ideas.A setback with using technology is that it is time consuming and error occurs easily. By testing a set ofthree prototypes I will investigate the problems at hand for interaction designers and come up with adesign solution to facilitate their design process. I will come to conclusion about making the modulesflexible, functional and user friendly to meet the user’s demands.

Vi lever i spännande tider, där vi har tillgång till olika användargränssnitt som hjälper oss att kommunicera med andra människor i realtid, oavsett var i världen de befinner sig. Ricoh är ett globalt IT företag som har utvecklat ett kompakt videokonferenssystem för dessa ändamål som heter ”P3500M”. Utveckling av mjukvara för denna typ av teknologi kan medföra olika tekniska utmaningar. Samtidigt håller organisationer viktiga möten via videokonferens och ställer ofta höga krav på kvalitén. Att skapa ett användbart gränssnitt som beaktar alla dessa aspekter kan bli en utmanande uppgift. Denna studie syftar till att utveckla ett nytt konceptgränssnitt som effekti- viserar utveckling, samt användning av videokonferenssystem och P3500M används som en ut- gångspunkt. Genom att utnyttja framväxande webbaserade teknologier och riktlinjer från tidigare studier inom produktutveckling med användbarhet i fokus, har man i denna studie resulterat i skapandet av en designlösningen som heter ”Cloud Vision”. Studien föreslår ett nytt sätt att ut- veckla användbara gränssnitt för videokonferenssystem, genom utveckling av en central webbap- plikation som tillhandahåller gränssnittet. Med gränssnitt som kan appliceras på olika videokon- ferenssystem som en separat modul, oberoende av plattform, kan det bli lättare att underhålla utvecklingen och hålla fokus på användbarhetsperspektiven. / We live in exciting times, where we have access to different user interfaces that help us commu- nicate with other people in real-time, regardless of where they are in the world. Ricoh is a global IT company that has developed a compact videoconferencing system for these purposes, called ”P3500M”. Development of software for this type of technology can lead to various technical challenges. At the same time, organizations have important meetings through videoconferencing and often make high demands on the quality. To create a useful interface that takes all these aspects into account can be a challenging task. This study aims to develop a new concept interface that streamlines the development and use of videoconferencing systems, where P3500M is used as a starting point. By making use of emerging web technologies and guidelines from previous studies in product development with usability in mind, this study results in the creation of a new design called ”Cloud Vision”. The study proposes a new way to develop usable interfaces for videoconfe- rencing systems, through the development of a central web application that provides the interface. With interfaces that can be applied to various videoconferencing systems as a separate module, regardless of platform, it can be easier to maintain the development and keep focus on usability perspectives.

The international communities of user interface, user experience and interaction designers are in an increasing need of considering Chinese users’ experiences when designing websites. China, along with other mandarin speaking populations, consists of a huge market. Almost one-fifth of global Internet users used Chinese as preferred language in 2020. Additionally, more and more companies worldwide are interested in doing business with the Chinese market.  Targeting the needs of internet users coming from a different cultural background requires a special approach as cultural characteristics may influence the users’ expectations. Even though there have been attempts to characterise user interface menus suitable for Chinese users, as of 2022, it is still challenging to access a study on explicitly navigation. The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate how local navigation can be adapted to the needs of Chinese users. This study also aims to examine the differences between Chinese and European users’ local navigation preferences. During the study, 2 Chinese subjects and 2 European subjects tested three versions of a web prototype that been developed according to the already established research on designing user interface (UI) for Chinese users. Each prototype alternative presented one of the three local navigation alternatives: inverted L, horizontal and embedded vertical. The data has been collected through conducting contextual inquiry in the form of semi-structured interviews and observations. The gathered information was then analysed through thematic analysis. The two themes: Accessibility of content and Interpreting functionality emerged from the coded data. This study acknowledged that differences between local navigation for Chinese and European users arise in cognitive traits. The Chinese users tend to categorise based on interdependence and relationship (thematic cognitive style) rather than to classify by functions, analyse components and infer common features (functional cognitive style). Furthermore, it has been recognised that Chinese population performs better with horizontal menu layouts with English interfaces. Results from this study show that the horizontal local navigation gained the biggest amount of positive feedback from Chinese interviewees, whereas vertical one the least. Even though, the findings illustrate that both Chinese and European subjects considered horizontal local navigation to be the most effective solution, interviewed Chinese users represented the least homogeneity in preferences. This study suggests that in order to develop guidelines for a fully functioning navigation system with English interfaces suitable for Chinese users, more studies on not solely local but also global and contextual navigation should be carried out. / Interaktionsdesigners samt UI/UX-designers över hela världen världen är i ett ökande behov av att ta hänsyn till kinesiska användares erfarenheter när de designar webbplatser. Kineserna, tillsammans med andra mandarintalande befolkningar, består av en enorm marknad. Nästan en femtedel av de globala internetanvändarna använde kinesiska som sitt föredragna språk i 2020. Dessutom, fler och fler företag globalt blir mer intresserade av att göra affärer med den kinesiska marknaden. För att se till att behoven hos internationella internetanvändare tillgodoses, krävs det ofta ett speciellt tillvägagångssätt. Detta eftersom kulturella egenskaper möjligtvis kan påverka användarnas förväntningar. Syftet med denna kvalitativa studie är att undersöka hur lokal navigering kan anpassas till kinesiska användarnas behov. Även om det redan finns några studier som satsar på att känneteckna användargränssnittsmenyer lämpliga för kinesiska användare, saknas det fortfarande studier som undersöker möjliga anpassningar av just navigering. Denna studie syftar vidare till att undersöka skillnaderna mellan kinesiska och europeiska användarnas lokala navigeringspreferenser. Under studien testade 2 kinesiska och 2 europeiska deltagare, tre versioner av en webbprototyp. Prototypen utvecklades enligt den redan etablerade forskningen kring design av användargränssnitt (UI) för kinesiska användare. Varje version av prototypen innehöll ett av de tre lokala navigeringsalternativen: inverted L, horizontal och embedded vertical. Data samlades in genom kontextuella undersökningar i form av semistrukturerade intervjuer och observationer. Den insamlade informationen analyserades sedan genom en tematisk analys. De två teman som framkom ur den kodade datan var: Tillgänglighet av innehåll och Tolkning av funktionalitet. Denna studie erkände att skillnader mellan lokal navigering för kinesiska och europeiska användare uppstår i kognitiva egenskaper. De kinesiska användarna tenderar att kategorisera baserat på ömsesidigt beroende och relation (tematisk kognitiv stil) snarare än att klassificera efter funktioner, analyskomponenter och härleda gemensamma drag (funktionell kognitiv stil). Dessutom har det insetts att den kinesiska befolkningen presterar bättre med horisontella menylayouter med engelska gränssnitt. Resultat från denna studie visar att den horisontella lokala navigeringen fick den största mängden positiv feedback från kinesiska intervjupersoner, medan den vertikala minst. Även om resultaten illustrerar att både kinesiska och europeiska ämnen ansåg horisontell lokal navigering vara den mest effektiva lösningen, representerade intervjuade kinesiska användare minst homogenitet i preferenser. Denna studie föreslår att för att utveckla riktlinjer för ett fullt fungerande navigationssystem med engelska gränssnitt lämpliga för kinesiska användare, bör fler studier om inte bara lokal utan även global och kontextuell navigering genomföras.

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The current best practices of user-centered design (UCD) may not be optimal with respect to eliciting information from representative users from special populations. This research extended elicitation approaches traditional focus on user needs and context to include criteria describing obstacles users encounter. Military veterans were selected for this research effort as representative users for a use case in technology design that addresses the difficulties associated with community reintegration. This work provides several contributions to the UCD field. First, different elicitation methods were compared by the depth and breadth of design space criteria elicited. Guidelines were generated for designer use of phenomenology in practice. Obstacles were added as an important facet of design, with corresponding grammar rules for construction. Finally, an algorithm was applied as a method for generating personas. Additionally, this dissertation contributes to the field of veteran research. Some example contributions include a set of design space criteria for designers to consider when designing for veterans, and two veteran personas grounded in data procured from the analysis. This research effort was conducted in three phases: elicitation, first-cycle analysis, and second-cycle analysis. The elicitation process engaged 40 military veterans to complete an interview session and a design session. These sessions explored the lived experience of veterans as they reintegrate into communities, and gathered their ideas for technology to assist with veteran reintegration. The researchers who conducted first-cycle coding focused on categorizing the most important participant statements (meaning units) using a codebook. This analysis resulted in over 3,000 meaning units. Additionally, the meaning unit corpus was subjected to systematic second-cycle analyses, using standardized linguistic structures to generate design space criteria. In total, over 6,000 design space criteria were discovered, and these criteria were synthesized to create personas using a situated data mining (SDM) algorithm. Results suggest that the interview session was crucial to elicit higher quantity and broader coverage of design space criteria. It is recommended that designers conduct and analyze interviews that focus on understanding the lived experience of users (not on their technology ideas) as part of a UCD approach. / Ph. D.