In its course of development, urban and regional planning has been greatly influenced by the modernist movement, which left human environments with various problematic ecological and social conditions. In reaction to these conditions, alternative planning approaches branched from the planning profession, one of these being the development approach known as place-making. Place-making is the physical designing of a place based on locational contexts. Place-making is offered as an alternative planning approach to current planning practice to ameliorate and possibly prevent continuation of the problematic ecological and social conditions. However, this implies that there has to come about a shift in the focus and aims of current planning practice. The main implications of place-making are that planning should become more contextually driven, holistic, multidisciplinary, as well as human and quality centred. Also, it is proposed to increase research on place in the South African context. In terms of current research in South Africa, a mixed-method research approach made it possible to include symbolic locational elements, like sense of place, in the planning process. Researching the Vredefort Dome's sense of place aimed to explore sense of place in a rural area and to concretise the area's sense of place for inclusion in spatial planning. Initial qualitative research informed the quantitative phase. This way symbolic experiences and meanings of participants were linked to spatial locations and three-dimensional features, which made it possible to create place-making guidelines based on both symbolic and material contexts of the Vredefort Dome. / Thesis (M.Art. et Scien. (Town and Regional Planning))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

In healthcare settings, administrative routines have been made more efficientthrough digitalization of information and the introduction of stationary computers.This situation is especially true when it comes to radiology, where pictures,referrals and patient information now is completely managed by advanced stationarycomputer systems. However, studies have shown that these rationalizationsdo not support flexible and mobile work routines.PocketRIS is a prototype illustrating a mobile terminal for radiology that hasbeen designed to simplify workflow and reduce the cognitive workload of healthcarepersonnel. PocketRIS includes a visualization of the clinicians work situationincluding a personal referral list that can make the user attentive of importantevents.Contextual Design has been used to elicit the basic system requirements for thesystem; 19 contextual inquires was conducted with physicians, nurses and assistantnurses at two different radiology clinics in Sweden during six days. The purposeof the study was also to identify the groups that have the greatest need for amobile terminal. The study was concerned with design and evaluation of differentsolutions with healthcare personnel.The result shows that physicians and assistant nurses have the greatest need ofa mobile terminal. Especially important for a mobile system is that it supportsevent-based work and provides a good overview over patients and the work situation.PocketRIS is an example of how these requirements this can be met at theradiology unit. / Genom effektiviseringar har en stor del av sjukvårdens administrativa rutiner digitaliseratsoch stationära arbetstationer införts på våra kliniker. Speciellt på röntgenavdelningarhanteras numera bilder, remisser och annan patientinformationmed hjälp av avancerade stationära datorsystem. Studier har dock visat att dessarationaliseringar ofta inte stödjer sjukvårdspersonalens flexibla och rörliga arbetsrutiner.PocketRIS är en prototyp för en mobil arbetsterminal som utvecklats specielltför att effektivisera arbetsflödet på röntgenavdelningar samt minska den kognitivabelastningen på sjukvårdspersonalen. PocketRIS innehåller en visualisering avklinikerns arbetssituation samt en personlig remisslista som kan göra denne uppmärksampå viktiga händelser.Contextual Design användes för att ta fram grundkraven på systemet; 19 styckencontextual inquirys genomfördes med läkare, sjuksköterskor och undersköterskorpå två olika röntgenkliniker i Sverige under totalt sex dagar. Arbetsplatsstudiensyftade även till att identifiera vilka grupper som har störst behov av en mobilarbetsterminal. Den senare delen av studien bestod av design och utvärdering avolika lösningsförslag tillsammans med sjukvårdspersonal.Resultatet av studien visar att det är läkare och undersköterskor som har störst behovav en mobil terminal. Speciellt viktigt för ett mobilt system är att det stödjerhändelsedrivet arbete och ger god överblick över patienterna och arbetssituationen.PocketRIS är ett exempel på hur detta kan uppfyllas för röntgenavdelningar.

Detta projekt syftar till att undersöka hur man genom litteraturstudie, intervju av personer i en användares närhet samt egna erfarenheter kan genomföra en designprocess. Inom många vårdområden finns det brister då det gäller tekniska hjälpmedel. Många personer både inom äldreomsorgen och inom LSS skulle ha stor nytta av tekniska hjälpmedel. Fokus i detta projekt är vuxna personer med autism. Designprocessen genomfördes med metoden Kontextuell design och innefattade de 6 första stegen av metoden. Projektet resulterade i en design av en applikation med kommunikationsstöd som ska komma att användas då man går och handlar matvaror.

The rapid growth and influence of social network services has led many scholars to focus on privacy issues. However, the research described in this thesis was motivated by the small number of design studies that have focused on practical approaches to identifying tacit information from users’ instant non-verbal responses to privacy issues. The research therefore aimed to propose persona models as a design solution for software agent development based on the analysis of users’ emotional and behavioural responses, so as to address privacy issues in social network services. In the definition phase, 21 stakeholders belonging to three key stakeholder groups were recruited for unstandardised semistructured email interviews. Three main considerations for the design of software agents in social network services emerged from the interviews, which were classified into the following categories: comprehensive understanding of users’ perceptions of privacy; user type recognition algorithm for software agent development; and existing software agent enhancement. In the development phase, 50 participants were recruited for the Facebook case study, which included three research strategies: perceptions of privacy questionnaire for user typology; emotional response measurement using Geneva Emotion Wheel; and behavioural response observation using a contextual inquiry method. The participants were classified into four user types by means of cluster analysis: uninformed, trustful, suspicious and neglectful. Each user type’s key emotional responses were identified using Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney U test, and key behavioural responses using affinity diagrams. This generated persona models of each user type that reflected the correlations between users’ perceptions of privacy, key emotional responses and key behavioural responses. Two fundamental features of the software agent were also proposed based on the persona models: confirmation and guidance. In the validation phase, software agent prototypes were created based on the proposed persona models. A total of 206 participants completed the online survey which included two sections: perceptions of privacy questionnaire for user typology replication, and key emotional responses measurement before and after the intervention of the software agent prototypes. Cluster analysis replication validated the proposed user typology, and Wilcoxon signed-rank test of key emotional responses validated the proposed persona models. By implementing the research outcomes, the software agent described in this thesis would be able to provide users with appropriate services based on their user types, to reduce the number of those who are still unaware of privacy practice and those who neglect their accounts, and to expand the size of a user group pursuing sound relationships.

The present work was performed at Aurora Innovation. Its purpose was to develop a proof-of-concept of an application where you could book an appointment and add personal information. This application is meant to be used by people of different ages, technology skills and preferences. User centered design was used during the development of the proof-of-concept, primarily the user centered design methods existing in contextual design. This project reflects on the value of these methods, and what the consequences could be if a product is developed from a single point of view. It was found that even for a relatively small project the user centered design proved valuable for collecting data, which then was used to improve the final proof-of-concept. Furthermore the results show how not having a varied test group can negatively affect your final product.

Today the building sector is focused on improving the energyefficiency in order to meet climate and financial business goals.Technical facility managers work with indoor energy use and oneaspect of their work is to optimize the facility performanceaccording to goals set by the company. Their work role involvestechnical and financial facility management, covering for absentcolleagues by acting as back-up support, as well as managing tenantrelationships. To perform their work, they must be able to accessdisparate digital tools, facility information and automatic controlsystems across various facilities.The purpose of this thesis was twofold. The first was to evaluate thepotential need of a portal that connects various systems and supportsinformation exchange among technical facility managers. The secondwas to disclose what this portal should include and from thatformulate a design solution.A contextual design approach was used to investigate the work domainof the technical facility managers through interviews andobservations. A first insight from the interviews was that technicalfacility managers had to navigate a broad range of tools, accessedfrom separate platforms. Importantly, their automatic control systemswere provided by various suppliers and accessed in disparate ways.Vital information was scattered in different systems, supportingneither daily work nor efficient retrieval of information.Additionally, much information was kept in individual records, whichmade back-up supporting more difficult. The interviews andobservations uncovered 7 user requirements that concerned 1) aholistic view, 2) easy access to automatic control system, 3)customization, 4) information creation 5) information retrieval, 6)statistics and analytics and 7) structure.

Digital technologies are becoming increasingly common tools in our daily lives. We use it for finding information, but also to communicate with people all over the world. With a vision to strengthen Swedish healthcare's digital resources, Sweden has made major efforts in this area. Improved living conditions have changed the demographic situation as people grow older, which in turn places higher demands on healthcare efficiency. Being able to meet these demands has made digitalization of healthcare increasingly important, but also demonstrating new challenges such as participation, transparency and usability. The purpose of this study has been to investigate if communicative tools can be created to facilitate nurses work with person-centred care and to enhance patients' positive experiences of their own care. The study is based on interviews and observations with nurses working within orthopaedic sections and employees working in facility management as well as administration within the hospital. The results show that digital solutions can be effective tools for enhancing person-centered care, but with automated solutions the physical encounter between nurses and patients can be reduced. The concepts that have been developed are two mobile applications. They were developed with the intention to make it easier for nurses to document and communicate patients' activity and care plans.

The thesis project is an exploration of interaction design possibilities within thespaces of public transport in urban India and the challenges for design in these large,disorderly contexts. These public transit spaces offer a microcosmic view of thecurrent urban environment of India, where new paradigms of technology adoptionare emerging, and provide significant scope for interaction design to learn from andcontribute to in diverse ways.As the theme of public transport and its encompassing spaces are traditionallyapproached from urban planning and engineering perspectives, this thesis aims toexplore the urbanism of transit places from the framework of place-specificcomputing, which is a perspective on mobile and ubiquitous computing, and adesign methodology that is grounded in and emanating from the social and culturalpractices of a particular place. To understand and evaluate the environment, theproject makes use of elements of participatory design, brainstorming techniques likeplacestorming, and experience prototyping methodologies, a way for users to interactdirectly with the prototype, and thus at each stage of the design process explores therole of prototyping to generate reflective discussion.The thesis proposes Crowd Compass, an information service based on crowd density,that is available freely anywhere but only of value in a certain context to support aspecific decision, and expires instantly. The thesis also presents a new paradigm fordesign in large scale, disorderly contexts: crowd density, a parameter of contextualinformation for transit; and the concepts of a semi-controlled space for earlyprototyping, analytic and generative maps for effective analysis, and the significanceof design from “the inside”.

PC-Dart is a software that the Swedish Armed Forces use to communicate when active on the field. They are limited to using the program only on Windows operating system, and their devices are not suitable for challenging contexts. It is not convenient for the army to bring impractical devices to the field, and it requires the soldiers to bring sleds of batteries and charging equipment with them. This thesis explores the possibilities of recreating the graphical user interface onto other platforms such as Android and Linux. It helps to increase the mobility on the field for the troops of the Swedish Armed Forces, which also means that there is not any restrictions by using their program on one platform. The development of the program required a pilot study on what available cross-platform frameworks to use in terms of developing an application that works on multiple platforms. Together with a relevant framework and a custom user-centered agile work process, this thesis strives to create an application that is cross-platform and with a graphical user interface that old users of the previous program can relate to. The project results show that a graphical user interface can be developed with a cross-platform framework while working in a user-centered agile process. However, it also shows that it can be a lot of work for one person, negatively affecting the process.

The participatory design previously proved to be a useful approach to design a system together with customers. Also, research has shown guidelines on managing distributed teams, which is now, during the Covid-19 pandemic, more relevant than ever. The gap that remains to be explored is the lack of guidelines on how to design a remote workshop in such a way that it enables people to share their work practice and picture their work contexts. In this work, we aim to gain knowledge about participants' abilities to collaborate online as well as accessing their different work processes by conducting a series of workshops involving a wide range of users. The results show that participants' hands-on performance was rather limited, and they tend to use more traditional ways of cooperation. Applying our methods, we were able to access details about the underlying processes of participants' work and their way of thinking that can be used to make the design of the workshop more suitable for participants.