Ease of use differentiates products in a highly competitive market place. It also brings an added value that culminates in a higher degree of customer satisfaction, repeated business, increased sales, and higher revenue. User-centered design is a strategic asset that companies can use to improve their customer relationships by learning more about their customers, and increase their sales. In today's economy, the measurement of intangible assets such as user experience has become a major need for industries because of the relationship between user-centered design and organizational benefits such as customer loyalty. As companies realize that the inclusion of user-centered design concepts in product or system design are a key component of attracting and maintaining customers, as well as increasing revenue, the need for quantitative methods to describe these benefits has become more urgent. The goal of this research is to develop a methodology to characterize user-centered design features, customer benefits and organizational benefits resulting from developing products using user-centered design principles through the use of an integrated framework of critical factors. Therefore, this research focuses on the identification of the most significant variables required to assess and measure the degree of user-centered design (UCD) characteristics included in the various aspects of product development such as physical design features, cognitive design attributes, industrial design aspects and user experience design considerations. Also this research focuses on the development of assessment tools for developers to use when evaluating the incorporation of user-centered design features in the creation of products and systems. In addition, a mathematical model to quantify the inclusion of UCD factors considered in the design of a product and systems is presented in this research. The results obtained using the assessment tools and the mathematical model can be employed to assess the customer benefits and organizational benefits resulting from including user-centered design features in the creation of products and systems. Overall, organizational benefits such as customer loyalty, company image, and profitability are expected to be impacted by the company's capability to meet or exceed stated design claims and performance consistency while maintaining aesthetic appeal, long product life, and product usefulness. The successful completion of this research has produced many beneficial research findings. For example, it has helped characterize and develop descriptors for estimating critical quantitative and qualitative components, sub-components, and factors influencing user-centered design that are related to customer and organizational benefits through the use of fuzzy set modeling. In addition, the development of specific tools, methods, and techniques for evaluating and quantifying UCD components resulted from this study.

Digital twin is an emerging technology that enhances digital transformation across many industries and domains. Most digital twins are made for a work context, and end users are the domain experts who carry knowledge in the work processes and products of which digital twin is part. The research gap for the present study is found in the missing adoption of a user-centered design approach and systematic evaluation of digital twins from the perspective of end users. User-Centered Design is a well-known design philosophy that engages users in the design process. By involving users, designers can better understand users and create situations where users can introduce their knowledge, needs and concerns into the products and systems. Emerging research questions for this study are: RQ1: What insights could be obtained with user-centered design and user involvement for the design of digital twin? RQ2: What limitations could user-centered design and user involvement incorporate in the design process of digital twins? This study will use both previous studies and empirical data from a scenario-based approach, workshops, observation, and interviews. Further, it will explore a theoretical framework combining User-Centered Design and Activity theory. This study aims to investigate what knowledge we can gain with users in focus and how that might help to fill the knowledge gap of previous research about user-centered involvement.

The meal is fundamental in terms of nutrition but also from a social perspective. To be able to eat independently is described as important for the meal experience.   The development of a robotic eating aid called Bestic and the evolvement of a list of usability criteria for such an aid are described in this thesis. The work has been ongoing for 16 years. Bestic has been developed through user centred design, an iterative process with reoccurring evaluations and development. The design principle “it is not supposed just to work, but to be worth using” has guided the work. The feedback provided by the users throughout this process has had a great impact on the strategic choices of which features to prioritize during further development and what to keep as it is and has contributed to the list of usability requirements for robotic eating aids.   The context in which the robotic eating aid is used is of importance for the usability requirements. To further understand the environment that the robotic eating aid is used in, studies about the meal situation for older people in both Scandinavian/Swedish and Japanese contexts were conducted. The secondary users (care professionals or next of kin) were also taken into consideration when deriving the usability requirements and while performing the evaluations of the robotic eating aid. The most important research outcome from this work is a list of usability requirements for robotic eating aids. The requirements are divided into functional requirements and social requirements. The functional requirements for robotic eating aids include: ·      how well they work to eat with ·      how they are controlled ·      safety aspects ·      portability ·      possibility to adapt to different users.   The social requirements for robotic eating aids include: ·      how to fit into the meal situation ·      not to disturb the conversation ·      the needs from secondary users. / Måltiden är fundamental för de allra flesta, för att få i sig näring men även som en social aktivitet. Att kunna äta självständigt beskrivs som viktigt för upplevelsen av måltiden. I denna avhandling beskrivs utvecklingen av ett robotiserat äthjälpmedel som heter Bestic och hur en lista med användbarhetskriterier för robotiserade äthjälpmedel har växt fram. Arbetet har pågått i 16 år. Bestic är utvecklad genom användarcentrerad design, en iterativ process med återkommande utvärderingar och utvecklingssteg. Designprincipen ”den skall inte bara gå att använda, utan vara värd att använda” har lett arbetet. Återkopplingen från användarna genom hela processen har haft stor inverkan på strategiska val för vilka funktioner som skall prioriteras för fortsatt utveckling och vad som skall behållas som det är. Återkopplingen har även utgjort ett underlag till listan med användbarhetskriterier för robotiserade äthjälpmedel. Miljön som äthjälpmedel används i påverkar också användbarhetskriterierna. För att förstå denna miljö genomfördes studier om måltidssituationen för äldre personer i både en skandinavisk/svensk och japansk kontext. Även sekundära användare (vårdpersonal eller anhöriga) togs i beaktan vid framtagandet av användbarhetskriterierna. Det viktigaste forskningsbidraget från detta arbete är en lista av användbarhetskriterier för robotiserade äthjälpmedel. Kriterierna är uppdelade på funktionella och sociala kriterier.  De funktionella användbarhetskriterierna för robotiserade äthjälpmedel inkluderar: ·      hur bra de fungerar att äta med ·      hur de styrs ·      säkerhetsaspekter ·      bärbarhet ·      möjlighet att anpassa till olika användare.   De sociala användbarhetskriterierna för robotiserade äthjälpmedel inkluderar: ·      hur den passar in i måltidssituationen ·      att inte störa konversationen ·      behoven från de sekundära användarna.

This thesis explores potential strategies to enhance user control and satisfaction within the movie selection process, with a particular focus on the utilization of conversational generative artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT, for personalized movie recommendations. The study adopts a qualitative user-centered design thinking approach, aiming to compre-hensively understand user needs, goals, and behavior. In-depth interviews were conducted, utilizing the "Thinking aloud"method and trigger materials to elicit rich user feedback. Participants interacted with ChatGPT and various prototypes, providing valuable insights into their experiences. The study found that participants felt more in control when given the opportunity to specify wishes. In addition, the users found that the experience of receiving recommendations through ChatGPT was more satisfying than their usual way of receiving recommendations for movies. Furthermore, participants expressed a desire for additional information about recommended movies and more novel suggestions. The prototypes, designed as triggers for user feedback, were generally well-received, providing an engaging and fun user experience. Despite some participants expressing challenges in specifying movie choices based on an emotion, this new approach to movie selection was viewed positively. Despite limitations concerning the study’s validity, reliability, and testing situation, the findings suggest the potential of generative artificial intelligence conversational agents in enhancing the movie selection process. It is concluded that iterative design improvements and further research is necessary to fully leverage the potential of natural language processing technologies in recommendation systems. The study serves as a preliminary investigation into improving movie recommendations using generative artificial intelligence and offers valuable insights for future developments.

Data visualisation can provide a user-friendly way to observe and understand data. It can make is easier to make well-informed decision and communicate findings in data. This study aims to research how to effectively structure and visualize a complex data sets in order to improve a battery discharge process. By implementing a dashboard and visualising a data set from electrical battery discharging, the following objectives are considered; analyse and identify which parameters and variables are most important in the battery discharging process. Analyse how data transformation and cleaning can support data visualisations. Define an interface that visualises the trends, anomalies and correlations of the data set. Evaluate how the visual representation is perceived by users in the battery recycling process?The study followed the User Centered Design method, which consist of five phases that are iterated. During the phases Identify needs and Specify context of use six stake holder interviews was held, theses were analysed through an Affinity diagram and Personas. In the phase Specify requirements requirements are established by conducting a user journey mapping. The data and insights from the previous phases was turned into ideas and solutions in the phase Produce design solutions. In total three low-fidelity and one high-fidelity prototype were created, as well as one implemented solution. In the last phase Evaluate design the design solutions were tested though, interviews, usability test and a survey. The result of the study strengthens the theory that data visualisations can be used to provide insights. The findings show that visualisation to some extent could help detect abnormalities, patterns and correlation between variables, which could be useful in improving a process.

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