I Sverige uppskattas 800 000 personer leva med astma. I landet pågår ett digitaliseringsarbete för att via e-tjänster göra vården mer tillgänglig för patienter. E-tjänster avsedda för astmavård har uppvisat svårigheter att främja kommunikation mellan patient och vårdgivare. E-tjänster har inte ansetts kunna ersätta den personliga kontakt som ett möte mellan patient och vårdpersonal erbjuder. Bristande kontakt med vården kan leda till att gradvis försämring av astmasymtom inte upptäcks. Det kan också leda till en avsaknad av upplevt socialt stöd hos patienten, vilket kan leda till sämre mental hälsa. För att undersöka hur e-tjänster för astmavård kan designas för att, genom individanpassad information, främja och upprätthålla kommunikationen mellan patient och vårdgivare, till stöd för god vård och patienthälsa, har en studie uppdelad i tre steg genomförts. Denna studie inleddes med en litteratursökning, följdes av en intervjustudie med öppna intervjuer och avslutades i en konceptdriven designprocess. Intervjuerna analyserades mot tidigare teorier och användes tillsammans med dessa som grund för att skapa ett designkoncept tänkt att främja och upprätthålla kommunikation mellan patient och vårdgivare i astmavården. Designkonceptet, “Astmaportalen”, togs iterativt fram genom en konceptdriven designmetod vilken involverade astmavårdpersonal, astmapatienter samt informatikstuderande. Konceptet manifesterades i form av en digital prototyp. Utvärderingar med astmavårdpersonal, astmapatienter och informatikstuderande visade att designkonceptet skulle kunna utgöra ett användbart bidrag till en symbios av vårdmöten på plats och digitala lösningar. / In Sweden, 800,000 persons are estimated to live with asthma. There is an ongoing digitization work in the country, to make healthcare more accessible to patients through the use of e-services. E-services intended for asthma care have shown difficulties in promoting communication between patients and the caregiver. E-services have not been considered able to replace the personal contact that a healthcare meeting between the patient and the caregiver offers. Lack of contact with the healthcare can lead to gradual deterioration of asthma symptoms not being detected. It can also lead to a patient-perceived lack of social support, which can lead to poorer mental health for the patient. To explore how e-services for asthma care can be designed in order to, through individualized information, promote and maintain communication between patient and the healthcare provider, in support of good care and patient health, a study divided into three steps has been carried out. The study began with a literature search, was followed by an interview study with open interviews and ended in a concept-driven design process. The interviews were analyzed against previous theories and used together with these as the basis for creating a design concept intended to promote and maintain communication between the patient and the caregiver in asthma care. The design concept, "Astmaportalen” (“The Asthma Portal"), was iteratively created through a concept-driven design method which involved asthma care personnel, asthma patients and informatics students. The concept was manifested in the form of a digital prototype. Evaluations with asthma care personnel and asthma patients demonstrated that the design concept could make a useful contribution to a symbiosis of healthcare meetings on site and digital solutions.

The increasing reliance of people on computers for daily tasks has resulted in a vast number of digital documents. Search engines were once luxury tools for quickly scanning a set of documents but are now quickly becoming the only practical way to navigate through this sea of information. Traditionally, search engine results are based upon a mathematical formula of document relevance to a search phrase. Often, however, what a user deems to be relevant and what a search engine computes as relevant are not the same. User feedback regarding the utility of a search result can be collected in order to refine query results. Additionally, user feedback can be used to identify queries that lack high quality search results. A content author can then further develop existing content or create new content to improve those search results. The most straightforward way of collecting user feedback is to add a graphical user interface component to the search interface that asks the user how much he or she liked the search result. However, if the feedback mechanism requires the user to provide feedback before he or she can progress further with his or her search, the user may become annoyed and provide incorrect feedback values out of spite. Conversely, if the feedback mechanism does not require the user to provide feedback at all then the overall amount of collected feedback will be diminished as many users will not expend the effort required to give feedback. This research focused on the collection of explicit user feedback in both mandatory (a user must give feedback) and voluntary (a user may give feedback) scenarios. The collected data was used to train a set of decision tree classifiers that provided user satisfaction values as a function of implicit user behavior and a set of search terms. The results of our study indicate that a more accurate classifier can be built from explicit data collected in a voluntary scenario. Given a limited search domain, the classification accuracy can be further improved.

Cette thèse porte sur la conception de systèmes multi-agents ambiants pour faciliter l'autonomie et l'accessibilité aux espaces publics, en particulier aux personnes âgées. Le vieillissement de la population et l'accroissement des situations de handicap liées à la progression en âge, appellent une approche nouvelle de l'accessibilité des espaces publics urbains. Dans ce contexte, cette thèse propose la conception d'un dispositif outillé d'assistance aux personnes âgées dans leurs activités quotidiennes à l'extérieur qui s'adapte à l'environnement ouvert et évolutif de son usager. Pour permettre son acceptabilité, ce dispositif d'assistance ambiant s'appuie sur une démarche de conception centrée utilisateur, interdisciplinaire et collaborative. Un prototype a été réalisé et il offre une assistance en temps réel aux activités quotidiennes par apprentissage. En effet, il permet de détecter des anomalies dans le comportement, de notifier des alertes ou de proposer des recommandations. / The purpose of my thesis is to design and develop an ambient multi-agent system for seniors to increase their autonomy and their accessibility to public spaces. The ageing of the population and the increase of disability situations linked to age, call for a new approach to the accessibility of urban public spaces. In this context, this thesis provides a personalized system to assist elderly in their daily outdoor activities. It takes into account the openness and the evolution of the environment to which the system should adapt. In order to ensure its acceptability, this ambient sociotechnical system is based on a user-centered interdisciplinary collaborative design approach. A prototype has been implemented and it offers assistance in daily external activities thanks to learning. In fact, the system detects unusual situations and acts accordingly (notifications, alerts or recommendations).

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

We see this world rich with culture, emotion, and human connections. The human built world can afford a sense of beauty, sublimity, and resonance, and through our advancements in technology also bringing the advancements in society. At the center of these advancements are interactions, conversations, connections, collaborations, and relationships, within and across multiple disciplines, with and without technology. For the last decades, as the computer technologies have been developing, the importance of human-computer systems interaction problems are also growing with the passage of time. This is not only because of the computer systems performance and characteristics have been improved, but also due to the growing number of computer users and of their expectations about general computer systems capabilities as universal tools for human work and life facilitation. Interface design is important for several reasons and the current growth of the different web applications are characterized by an increasing availability of online different services or products trading and different search facilities like flight search web sites, provided by most commercial airlines. In this study we will therefore create an understanding of the most important interaction design principles for the designers of online booking systems. The research methodology used in the research is design and creation. The method components used in this study are documents and interviews. The theoretical study has identified some important aspects covering the human computer interaction, usability of interactive interface, user feedback and the user-centered design approach for the development of such online booking systems. These aspects have been verified through the three interviews with the interviewees having different experience levels. The result shows that the interaction design is really important in designing of interactive online booking system. Therefore, the designers of such systems need to have an understanding of the most important design principles like the usability and functionality of the system, the approach should be iterative in design, provide proper feedback, minimum steps in booking process, risk management, and user-centered approach should be included in your design principles. It is also important for the designers of online booking systems to be aware of the usability factor of the system. The cognitive psychology is also vital for designers to understand how users think and perceive things. Designers need to have a good balance between context and graphics of the interface of such systems. The result also has been shown in the design of prototype with the most important interaction design principles and other factors. / Program: Magisterutbildning i informatik

Data privacy has been growing in importance in recent years, especially with the continuous increase of online activity. Researchers study, design, and develop solutions aimed at enhancing users’ data privacy. The wicked problem of data privacy is a continuous challenge that defies straightforward solutions. Since there are many factors involved in data privacy, such as technological, legal, and human aspects, we can only aim at mitigating rather than solving this wicked problem. Our aim was to focus on human aspects for designing usable crypto-based privacy-enhancing solutions.  In this thesis, we followed a user centered design method by using empirical qualitative means for investigating user’s perceptions and opinions of our solutions. Most of our work has focused on redactable signatures in the cloud context within the eHealth use-case. Redactable signatures are  a privacy enhancing scheme allowing to remove parts of a signed document by a specified party for achieving data minimization without invalidating the respective signature. We mainly used semi-structures interviews and focus groups in our investigations. Our results yielded key HCI considerations as well as guidelines of different means for supporting the design of future solutions. / Data privacy has been growing in importance in recent years, especially with the continuous increase of online activity. Researchers continuously study, design, and develop solutions aimed at enhancing users’ data privacy. The wicked problem of data privacy is the continuous challenge that defies straightforward solutions. Since there are many factors involved in data privacy, such as technological, legal, and human aspects, we can only aim at mitigating rather than solving this wicked problem. Our aim was to focus on human aspects for designing usable crypto-based privacy-enhancing solutions.  In this thesis, we followed a user centered design method by using empirical qualitative means for investigating user’s perceptions and opinions of our solutions. Most of our work has focused on redactable signatures in the cloud context within an eHealth use-case. Redactable signatures are a privacy-enhancing scheme, which allow the removal of parts of a signed document by a specified party without invalidating the respective signature. Our results yielded key HCI considerations as well as guidelines of different means for supporting the design of future solutions. / <p>Paper 3 was included as manuscript in the thesis.</p>

Este estudo buscou identificar variáveis e parâmetros determinantes para a otimização do design da interface dos teclados virtuais de padrão Qwerty no contexto da produção de textos em português. Tendo como fonte principal de dados o usuário final, buscou-se, nesta pesquisa, entender de que maneira os variados sistemas de teclado e as diversas configurações possíveis se adequam aos hábitos e à cultura de uso dos diferentes usuários, considerando-se, neste ponto, as diferenças entre a língua inglesa (condicionante do arranjo Qwerty) e a portuguesa. A pesquisa foi composta de dois experimentos e um questionário e conduzida junto a usuários de dispositivos móveis com telas de 3,5 a seis polegadas, limites que englobam grande parte dos aparelhos equipados com os teclados aqui analisados. No capítulo 1 contextualizou-se o problema estudado e definiu-se espectro da pesquisa. O capítulo 2 apresenta a revisão bibliográfica sobre o tema e trata do uso do teclado desde seu surgimento até sua utilização em smartphones, das especificidades da língua portuguesa e de caminhos, métodos e soluções encontrados em pesquisas correlatas. No capítulo 3 são apresentados os métodos utilizados em cada etapa do estudo: o questionário buscou respostas junto a 302 usuários a respeito de diversos fatores ligados à utilização do teclado virtual em smartphones; os dois experimentos envolveram a gravação em vídeo da interação de 17 participantes com o teclado em diferentes tarefas de inserção de textos em português, o primeiro envolvendo a cópia de textos pré-definidos em diferentes configurações de teclado, e o segundo a análise da produção de textos livres no aparelho do próprio participante, configurado conforme suas preferências pessoais. O capítulo 4 apresenta as análises empreendidas em cada etapa de interação com usuários e o capítulo 5 mostra as conclusões a que se chegou com base nos dados analisados. Os resultados mostraram que em grande parte dos aparelhos o desenho do teclado é pautado pelo arranjo Qwerty, que delimita o tamanho e mapeamento das teclas mais utilizadas para inserção de textos. Observou-se também que os usuários que utilizam seus aparelhos com maior versatilidade têm maior fluência no uso do teclado e acabam por contornar as limitações da interface, vindo a avaliar melhor o sistema. O uso eficiente do teclado estaria ligado não especificamente à velocidade de digitação, mas a um ritmo próprio de cada indivíduo que, quando alterado, contribui para a incidência de erros. Nesse sentido, verificou-se que as tarefas de cópia, por envolver a observação constante do texto a ser reproduzido, tendem a causar pausas no processo de digitação, aumentando a probabilidade da ocorrência de toques em teclas diferentes das pretendidas. Erros deste tipo, mais comuns, mostraram-se estar atrelados à maior utilização das teclas e parecem ser, portanto, inevitáveis. O processo de prevenção e correção de falhas de digitação, desta forma, mostrou-se fator fundamental na utilização deste tipo de teclado, evidenciando a importância dos assistentes de digitação. Estes, no entanto, podem vir a condicionar a maneira como o usuário interage com o teclado e, em alguns casos, contribuir para a ocorrência de erros. / This study seeks to identify, in the context of Portuguese text entry, determinant variables and parameters for the Qwerty keyboard interface design optimization. Considering that the primary data source is the final user, this research attempts to understand how adequate are the various keyboard systems and configurations to users\' habits and culture, taking into account the differences between English (language used to define the Qwerty layout) and Portuguese. In this research, two experiments and one survey were carried out with 3,5\" to 6\" smartphones users, boundaries that encompasses the majority of the devices equipped with the keyboard types targeted to be analyzed. In the first chapter the problem was contextualized and the spectrum of the research was defined. The second chapter presents the history of the Qwerty keyboard, since its development (when the typewriters were being created) to the use in smartphones, shows important singularities of Portuguese language and an overview of related studies. In the third chapter the methods applied in this research were shown: the survey was carried out with 302 participants to find how they cope with different aspects of the use of smartphones; the two experiments involved the recording of 17 users interacting with the keyboard in different kinds of tasks, text transcription with varying device configuration and free text production in the participant\'s own device. The fourth chapter presents the analysis of the data obtained in the different stages of the study that involved interaction with users and the fifth chapter shows the conclusions made base on the data analyzed. Results showed that great part of the devices present the keyboard ruled by the Qwerty layout, which limits the size and the mapping of the keys most used for text insertion. It was also noted that those who use their devices with greater flexibility are more fluent in the use of the keyboard and create shortcuts to cope with limitations imposed by this interface. These users tend to give the keyboard a better evaluation. The results also showed that a efficient use of the interface would not be tied specifically to typing speed, but rather to the individual typing rhythm that, when disturbed, contributes for the occurrence of errors. In this sense, it was noted that copy tasks, because it involves constant monitoring of the text to be copied, tend to produce pauses in the typing process, which increases the probability of touches landing in different keys than intended. This type of error, most common, appeared to be tied to key usage and, thus, seem to be inevitable. Error preventing and correction, this way, are fundamental for the usage of virtual keyboards in small devices. Results showed that the use of typing assistants, however, could modify the way users type and, in some cases, contribute to the increase of error occurrence.

The use of banking automated teller machine (ATM) technological innovations have significant importance and benefits in Nigeria, but numerous investigations have shown that illiterate and semiliterate Nigerians do not perceive them as useful or easy-to-use. Developing easy-to-use banking ATM system interfaces is essential to accommodate over 40% illiterate and semiliterate Nigerians, who are potential users of banking ATM systems. The purpose of this study was to identify strategies software developers of banking ATM systems in Nigeria use to create easy-to-use banking ATM system interfaces for a variety of people with varying abilities and literacy levels. The technology acceptance model was adopted as the conceptual framework. The study's population consisted of qualified and experienced developers of banking ATM system interfaces chosen from 1 organization in Enugu, Nigeria. The data collection process included semistructured, in-depth face-to-face interviews with 9 banking ATM system interface developers and the analysis of 11 documents: 5 from participant case organizations and 6 from nonparticipant case organizations. Member checking was used to increase the validity of the findings from the participants. Through methodological triangulation, 4 major themes emerged from the study: importance of user-centered design strategies, importance of user feedback as essential interface design, value of pictorial images and voice prompts, and importance of well-defined interface development process. The findings in this study may be beneficial for the future development of strategies to create easy-to-use ATM system interfaces for a variety of people with varying abilities and literacy levels and for other information technology systems that are user interface technology dependent.

<p>Today there exist several systems that lack usability. The reasons are, among others, the pressure to add more features in the system, but also that focus has been earlier on technology and functionality. It becomes more important to think of the user, so that systems can be more usable. By focusing on the user, the user experience can enhance, which results in more satisfied users.</p><p>User involvement in the system development process is one way to learn and receive information about the user. There are several ways of doing that. One way is to create user portraits from existing user models. We have studied different user models and lack a model that includes both tasks and goals; for example one of the existing models focus on user goals and another on relations with the system.</p><p>The purpose with this final thesis is to create a model to describe users as roles providing a more effective and generalized user-centered system development process.</p><p>To create this model, the role profile model, we studied existing theories. By them we were influenced both by good and less good things. The theoretical study resulted in a tentative model that we tested by interview and observe six buyers within the manufacturing industry. This resulted in two role profiles; the strategic buyer and purchase planner. From the result of the interviews and observations, we improved the tentative role profile model to our final model. There were some factors that did not fit in the tentative model and some that we added.</p><p>The role profile model contains three elements; objectives, requirements and context. These elements consist of a number of attributes that are important when surveying a role profile. The uniqueness with the role profile model is the fact that it includes both role specific attributes and attributes that puts the role profile into a context. The model contains for example work process, system requirements, responsibility and authority.</p><p>The role profile is at part of a greater context. There are design philosophies that concern the whole system development process; from survey the user to design and test. Our role profile model only handles the first parts, the user and tasks, due to the time limitations.</p><p>We have created a practical procedure that we recommend to facilitate the usage of the role profile model. The practical procedure is based on our choices of method when testing the tentative role profile model. The central in our practical procedure are interviews and observations. It is important to plan the company visits so that all necessary information is received.</p><p>The usage of the role profile can for example contribute with: knowledge and understanding of the users, structured work procedure, a generally accepted terminology and a user-centered design process.</p><p>This final thesis has been performed on commission of Lawson Software. We had continuously discussions with them about usability and the role profile model. We have studied fields of applications for the role profile model at Lawson. We think they can use the model in the product requirement process, design and evaluation, work with composite applications, user understanding and user priority and introduction of new employees.</p> / <p>Idag finns det ett flertal system som har bristande användar¬vänlighet. Detta beror bland annat på påtryckningar att lägga till fler funktioner i systemen, men också på att det bakåt i tiden har fokuserats på att utveckla system utifrån teknologi och funktionalitet. Det blir allt viktigare att tänka på användaren så att systemen blir mer användarvänliga. Genom att fokusera på användaren kan man öka användarupplevelsen i systemet och det medför att användarna blir nöjdare.</p><p>Att involvera användaren i utvecklingsprocessen är ett sätt att lära känna och få information om användaren. Det finns många sätt att göra det på. Ett sätt är att skapa användarporträtt med hjälp av olika befintliga användarmodeller. Vi har studerat olika användarmodeller och sett att det saknas en användarmodell som inkluderar både fokus på användarens arbetsprocess och dess mål; till exempel en av de existerande modellerna fokuserar på användarens mål och en annan på relationer med system.</p><p>Syftet med detta examensarbete är därför att skapa en modell som beskriver användare som roller, som bidrar till en effektivare och bredare användar¬centrerad systemutvecklingsprocess.</p><p>För att ta fram denna modell, rollprofilsmodellen, studerade vi som sagt existerande teorier. Från dem påverkades vi både av delar som vi tyckte var bra och mindre bra. Vi kom fram till en hypotesmodell som vi testade genom att intervjua och observera sex inköpare på tillverkande företag. Detta resulterade i två rollprofiler; den strategiska inköparen och inköpsplaneraren. Utifrån resultaten av intervjuerna och observationerna förbättrade vi hypotesen till vår slutliga modell. Det fanns vissa faktorer som vi inte tyckte passade in, men även attribut som borde läggas till.</p><p>Rollprofilsmodellen innehåller tre delar; mål, krav och kontext. Dessa delar består av ett antal attribut som är viktiga att undersöka hos den rollprofil som ska skapas. Det som utmärker rollprofilsmodellen är att den inkluderar både roll¬speci¬fika mål och attribut som sätter rollprofilen i en kontext. Modellen innehåller till exempel relationer, krav, ansvar och befogenheter.</p><p>Rollprofilen är en del av en större kontext. Det finns designfilosofier som berör hela systemutvecklingsprocessen; från att kartlägga användaren till att designa och testa. På grund av tidsbegränsningar har vi enbart berört de första av dessa delar; användaren och arbetsuppgifter.</p><p>För att underlätta användandet av rollprofilen har vi skapat ett rekommenderat praktiskt tillvägagångssätt. Detta är baserat på våra egna metodval när vi testade vår hypotesmodell. Det centrala i det praktiska tillvägagångssättet är intervjuer och observa¬tioner. Det är viktigt att planera noggrant så att all nödvändig informa¬tion erhålls.</p><p>Användandet av rollprofilen kan till exempel bidra till: kunskap och förståelse av användaren, ett strukturerat arbetssätt, en allmänt accepterad terminologi samt en användar¬centrerad utvecklingsprocess.</p><p>Detta examensarbete har utförts på uppdrag av Lawson Software, med vilka vi kontinuer¬ligt har fört diskussioner om användbarhet och rollprofilsmodellen med mera. Vi har även utforskat vilka potentiella användningsområden som rollprofilen har på Lawson. Lawson skulle kunna använda modellen i kravhanteringsprocessen, design och utvärdering, arbete med komposita applikationer, användarförståelse och priori¬teringar samt intro¬ducerande av nyanställda.</p>

<p>This thesis tries to define factors that impact upon the feeling of exclusivity for users on travelorganizers websites. We have identified seven key factors that we believe impact this feeling andthose factors are newsletters, special offers/auxiliary services, registration/limited information,price, limited number of seats on a journey, deals for members and personal service. To researchthis we have conducted a questionnaire and performed interviews with people that are familiarwith travel organizers websites. To create an understanding for the results we have studied usercenteredweb design, affective design and the meaning of pictures. The results show that personalservice and price are important factors to make users feel that they get their requirements andwishes met. Newsletters and special offers/auxiliary services on the other hand are seen by mostas spam and do not impact the feeling of exclusivity because it is being sent to anyone who signsup for it.</p>