This design thesis is part of CATEA's RERC workplace accommodations grant, and it adopts a human centered design methodology to research, develop, test and evaluate designs of behind-the-counter workspaces that maximize independence and participation of employees and increase their employment possibilities. Preliminary research shows that current designs of behind-the-counter workspaces do not accommodate needs of intended employees including the seated and standing users. According to the research, factors like task design and lack of ease of use have contributed to job loss and reduced employment. Through participatory research techniques and ergonomic studies, this project identified accessibility and usability needs and outlined basic and extended design guidelines for behind-the-counter workstations that would address these needs. Results from observational research, usability studies and user interviews were analysed to create design specifications for a range of workstations. The resulting workstation designs incorporate universal design guidelines and aim to expand employment opportunities for people with disabilities and older adults.

This thesis uses two frameworks for effective gamification and makes a realization of part of them, with the aim of proposing a stage before gamification itself: the enterprise anticipation of gamification, which can be either of optimism or apathy. It can reveal to an enterprise willing to foster people’s motivation which gamification elements are more likely to succeed due to the uncertainties that the concept still carries. A survey was used as an instrument to measure people’s expectations towards game elements to increase the psychological satisfaction according to the Self Determination Theory, and shaped by an instrument to measure maturity in lean. The result of the survey in a company showed that there is an overall interest in gamification elements to increase autonomy and competence, but not relatedness, and also that even if people are aware of a gamification project their expectations are not significantly different from those who are not. Future studies should compare if the anticipation towards game elements are correspondent with the actual feelings when using a gamified solution.

This article discusses the understanding of the design process in research projects by taking specific tools from project management into account. Explorative and creative design projects often run the risk of loosing focus on project goals during the process. This article aims to provide a novel approach to the ongoing discussion of the clash between creativity and efficiency during the creation of artifacts. By discussing the self-conducted case study – project „Yu‟ – this article reflects on the design process as well as the relationship between the designer and the user. The model created and presented includes two techniques; the active user dialogue and the goal and user needs definition. Both are inspired by similar approaches in project management, which illustrate the importance of the designer's responsibility for the final design outcome. The article identifies and discusses similar approaches in design theory and is aiming to emphasize the positive possibilities for an elaborate design approach. / YU project at the Mobile Life Centre

Smart homes are residences equipped with information and communication technologies that anticipate and respond to the needs of the occupants. Despite the numerous research and industrial efforts, today only few expensive smart homes have been built and sold. The reason behind this slow uptake is the technology-driven approach characterizing existing solutions. The doctoral Thesis aims at demonstrating that a smart home can provide functionalities designed with a user-centered approach, taking into account ergonomic considerations about domestic activity and human cognition. This is achieved in collaboration with cognitive ergonomists, which help "minding the gap" between human context and machine-understandable context. Using off-the-shelf and lightweight instrumentation (also minimizing privacy concerns), extending existing context modeling, reasoning and management tools and following the Ubiquitous Computing principles, the doctoral work led to the following achievements: (i) the inter-disciplinary design of suitable functionalities, in collaboration with cognitive ergonomists; (ii) the design of a context-aware system that captures and reasons about uncertain contextual information in a distributed fashion; (ii) the realization of a working prototype that demonstrates the provision of energy-saving and comfort-preserving functionalities.

Darbo aktualumas. 70% pasaulinio BVP sukuriama paslaugų sektoriuje, todėl atkreipiamas dėmesys į netechnologines inovacijas, kurios gali pasireikšti per verslo modelių pokyčius, geresnį dizaino ir procesų organizavimą. Paslaugų ekonomikos augimas buvo paspartintas informacijos amžiaus pokyčių, kurie atvėrė naujas galimybes, todėl paslaugų inovacijos ir paslaugų dizainas sulaukia vis daugiau dėmesio. Darbo tikslas. Nustatyti paslaugų dizaino taikymo galimybes ir praktiką skirtinguose sektoriuose ir pateikti galimų sprendimų bei įrankių rinkinius. Darbo uždaviniai: 1. Ištyrinėti paslaugų dizaino istorines aplinkybes, siekiant pateikti koncentuotą informaciją, padedančią suprasti paslaugų dizaino ištakas. 2. Išnagrinėti dizaino vadybos ir paslaugų dizaino sąsajas, atskleidžiant veiklos principų tapatumą. 3. Išnagrinėti paslaugų dizaino praktikoje naudojamus metodus ir specifinius įrankius, siekiant išsiaiškinti paslaugų dizaino proceso principus. 4. Išnagrinėti paslaugų dizaino praktikos atvejus užsienyje, siekiant išryškinti paslaugų dizaino teikiamą konkurencingumo potencialą. 5. Praktiškai išbandyti paslaugų dizaino metodus kūrybinių pratybų metu, norint realiai patikrinti paslaugų dizaino veiksmingumą. Darbe taikyti metodai. Kompleksiškai taikyti kiekybiniai ir kokybiniai, teoriniai bei empiriniai tyrimų metodai: literatūros ir empirinių tyrimų duomenų rinkimas, sisteminimas ir analizė; teorinių modelių, dokumentų ir empirinių faktų analizė, interviu, stebėjimas, atvejo... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Relevance of the work. 70% of the world’s GDP is created in service sector, thus attention is drawn to non-technological innovations that may manifest in the changes of business models, better design and process organization. The development of service economy was accelerated by the changes of the Information age, which created new opportunities and consequently, service innovation and service design attracts more attention. Aim of the work. To identify the application and practice opportunities of service design in different sectors and offer possible solutions as well as sets of tools. Work tasks: 1. To investigate the historical circumstances of service design in order to present concentrated information, which helps to perceive the origins of service design. 2. To investigate the connections between design management and service design revealing the sameness of the operating principles. 3. To investigate the methods and specific tools applied in the practice of service design in order to find out the principles of service design process. 4. To investigate the cases of service design practice abroad in order to emphasize the potential for competitiveness provided by service design. 5. To test service design methods during workshops in practice so that the real effectiveness of service design could be verified. Methodology. Quantitative and qualitative, theoretical and empirical research methods were complexly applied: literary and empirical research data were... [to full text]

The creation of interactive computer-controlled characters in interactive media is a challenging and multi-faceted task requiring the skills and effort of professionals from many fields. This work addresses authoring the interactive aspect of these characters’ behaviors – how characters act automatically in response to a dynamic user-controlled character. We present PaintBoard, a system that enables users to prototype and test discrete, real-time, interactive movements in a 2D grid environment simply by digitally painting a storyboard. We designed and developed a novel authoring technique for creating behaviors (painting storyboards) and a novel algorithm based on machine-learning, that analyzes a storyboard to create a behavior that works beyond situations provided in the input storyboard. We conducted two exploratory studies that grounded the prototype design, and present the results of a proof-of-concept workshop with game developers. Finally, we performed a comparison of machine learning algorithms’ performance on our storyboard data.

Det ligger något motsägelsefullt i att bilföretag arbetar med miljöfrågor. Ökad globalisering och urbanisering har haft en stor inverkan på vår miljö. Som en av världens största biltillverkare anser Toyota att de har ett stort ansvar för sitt ekologiska fotavtryck och satsar dagligen 49 miljoner kronor på miljöarbete. Examensarbetet gäller för Toyota Sweden AB med syftet att skapa nya möjligheter för att kommunicera Toyotas miljöarbete hos återförsäljarna. För att kunna uppfylla syftet arbetade vi med att besvara två övergripande forskningsfrågor: Hur ser Toyotas miljöarbete ut idag samt  Hur kan Toyotas miljöprofil förstärkas hos återförsäljarna? Då forskningsfrågorna var av bred karaktär valde vi att arbeta efter IDEO:s framtagna process Human-Centered Design, kombinerat med det arbetssätt som Anders Wikström utvecklat genom den forskning han bedriver vid Mälardalens högskola. Vid Human-Centered Design utgår man från de människor man designar för genom att utveckla empati, dvs. en djup förståelse för de problem och den verklighet de människorna lever i.  Resultatet av examensarbetet kom att bestå av två delar. Dels en nulägesanalys av Toyotas miljöarbete och hur det återspeglas hos återförsäljarna. Dels ett visionärt koncept, Talking Cars, som skildrar ett framtida sätt att köpa bil som syftar till att förstärka upplevelsen i bilhallen.  En av många slutsatser som kan dras av examensarbetet är att Toyota gör det de säger sig göra i samband med sitt miljöarbete. De behöver dock bli tydligare i sin kommunikation till omvärlden för att kunna göra sitt miljöarbete rättvisa. Genom detta examensarbete är våra förhoppningar att Toyota har fått insikter och inspiration till hur de skulle kunna gå tillväga.

In the last decades, the rapid change and prevalent use of technology are concerning, as they induced effects which mainly altered various encompassing contexts like consumer market dynamics and product development processes. Evidently, these transformations also affect the way users interact with products. It is observed that, technological novelties are applied in the competitive market as a tool for product differentiation. In addition, the rapid development of these technologies is a dominating factor on shortening product lifecycles. Resulting from these two factors, implementing latest technologies in new products is interpreted by producers as an absolute way of achieving market success. Consequently, most of the products in everyday life are designed with a primary aim to implement latest technological advances, without appropriate consideration of user requirements and characteristics. The phenomenon has negative consequences on product usability. This study basically examines the usability problems that are related with digital technology impelementations in consumer products. The evaluations are based on the contexts such as: changes in contemporary market conditions with the effects of the recent technological developments, technology-driven approaches in product development processes and the transformative consequences of digital technology applications on user-product interaction. Literature surveys are employed as method. Finally, interaction characteristics of digital products and the contexts in which they are used are evaluated and it is argued that, the usability problems are due to the deficiency in evaluations of user characteristics and requirements during the product development processes, in general terms.

End-users often complain about usability and safety problems in consumer packages. This study shows that these issues are an obstacle to the achievement of user satisfaction and to gain a competitive advantage in the market. To this end, a case study on food and beverage packages was done in order to identify and analyze these usability and safety problems based on the lifetime phases of packages in which end-users are involved. The study revealed that safety, clarity, legibility, visibility, storability, openability, re-closability, usefulness, and pleasantness are key areas where problems are widespread and should be considered by package developers and designers. The study also indicated that the problems occurred during use result from insufficiencies in current package design processes. These insufficiencies occur basically in the specification of the context of package use, identification of usability requirements, and the active involvement of the actual users in the package design processes. This study also highlights the need for a user-centered approach to package design in order to overcome the insufficiencies in current package design processes in a structured way and thus to achieve usable and safe packages. In addition, based on the literature and case study findings, checklists for user-centered package design process activities and for the design and evaluation of the packages are included. Moreover, a set of methods to be used during user-centered package design process is recommended.

In a world dominated by digital technologies, user-centered design aims to ensure that the users are catered with solutions that deal with their needs. As agile methods have become a prevalent approach in software development, it is crucial for the two disciplines to work together. However, existing studies have already presented incompatibilities between the methods of the two disciplines. This study intends to investigate the impact that agile principles have on the adoption of user-centered approach on a broader scale through the many parties involved in the process. By conducting interviews with practitioners and interpreting the results through the lens of Engeström’s activity system model, the findings of the study reveal significant influences imposed on the user-centered approach by external and organizational factors that are intensified by the agile principles. Three main areas of concern are identified and accompanied by broad suggestions on how to approach resolving them, focusing on the empowerment of UX designers, accurate deliberation of the intentions and practices of user-centered approach, and close collaboration to raise awareness of the benefits of user-centered approach. Lastly, it is emphasized that the identified areas of concern – primarily the problematic impact from clients and executives – need further extensive research to provide definitive solutions.