Primary care clinics play a vital role in the US healthcare system, providing preventative and cost-effective care. New trends in healthcare such as the development of the medical home model for care, the application of electronic medical records (EMRs), the effort to increase access to care, and the need to adhere to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) will have direct impacts on the work flow and spatial delineation of primary care clinics. To ensure the success of primary care practices, the architectural design of primary care clinics needs to address these changes to satisfy both patients and staff, and to improve efficiency and outcomes of care. There is limited literature on the design usability (efficiency, effectiveness, and user satisfaction) of primary care clinics. This study developed a set of building usability evaluation tools to collect, analyze and interpret the “usability” of a primary care facility. The study used previous literature as well as a case study primary care clinic in Maryland as a basis to develop these tools. In the clinic, data were collected through an initial interview with the head nurse, a forty-hour behavioral observation, and a staff survey. A behavioral observation tool and a survey questionnaire were developed for the data collection. For data analysis, JMP Pro 9 software was used to analyze the data collected through behavioral observation and the staff survey. The literature review developed a “Building Usability Framework” specifically for healthcare design. A data analysis tool, the “Usability Matrix” was created to integrate and understand the analyzed data within the Building Usability Framework. Integrating the analyzed data from the case study within the Usability Matrix, a primary care clinic usability evaluation survey was developed at the end of the study. This survey along with the behavioral observation tool and design analysis tools were compiled together to produce the “Building Usability Evaluation Tool-Kit for Primary Care Clinics.” This tool-kit can be used by architects and researchers interested in designing and analyzing “usable” primary care clinics.

As humans we constantly develop theories and methods in order to change and improve our way of working or to find better ways of conducting design work. This thesis is about this strive.The design process of particular interest in this thesis is system design, in the sense of design of computer applications. One major line of reasoning is that the rationality of design work underlying today's system design methods does not reflect the rationality in practice. If a design method is to be accepted by practitioners, it has to reflect a rationality related to the rationality familiar to the practitioners.A comparison is made between different kinds of design processes: the research process, the engineering process and the artistic process, in order to discuss the possibility of a generic design process. One conclusion is that there is no such thing as the "natural" or "given" design process.An outline of an ideal-oriented design theory is presented. The purpose is to make design practice understandable and to reveal the hidden rationale of design work. A rationale must be seen as the sum of at least three different forms of knowledge: reason, aesthetics and ethics, where aesthetics is the ability to judge (the aesthetical-practical form of knowledge). Today "reason" (in the sense of pure empirical-theoretical knowledge) is the dominant form of knowledge in system design methods, This leads to a view of design as problem solving and as "fixing a malfunctioning reality". The design process should instead be viewed as a creative way to design a new reality. In order to discuss this ideal-oriented theory, the concepts of vision, operative image, thought figure, design situation, and intuition are introduced.Some aspects of the design process emerge as particularly important. There is a shift of attention from problem oriented design to ideal oriented, from functionally oriented to aesthetically oriented, from depictive to creative. There is also a shift in the way we view designed artifacts. The artifact is to be seen as a social actor. The design process is a way to invent and establish the space of possible actions. To design is to create a social environment.As a result, the meaning of the concept "method" also changes. The purpose of a design method should be to develop the designers' design ability and to create readiness to act, not to guide the designers in a specific design situation. There is an elaborate discussion of what may constitute the design ability and of how a designer should a a and think in order to improve his design ability.The results of an interview study with twenty system designers are presented. The study shows that if we want to understand the hidden rationale of design practice, it is both meaningful and useful to view the system design practice as ideal-oriented design.The results of the interviews are formulated as a question: How would and could the methodology and practice of system design change if it were based on an ideal-oriented design theory? Some areas where further work and development ought to be done are presented. / digitalisering@umu

Complex engineering systems involve large numbers of functional elements. Each functional element can exhibit complex behavior itself. Ensuring the ability of such systems to meet the customer's needs and requirements requires modeling the behavior of these systems. Behavioral modeling allows a quantitative assessment of the ability of a system to meet specific requirements. However, modeling the behavior of complex systems is difficult due to the complexity of the elements involved and more importantly the complexity of these elements' interactions. In prior work, formal functional modeling techniques have been applied as a means of performing a qualitative decomposition of systems to ensure that needs and requirements are addressed by the functional elements of the system. Extending this functional decomposition to a quantitative representation of the behavior of a system represents a significant opportunity to improve the design process of complex systems. To this end, a functionality-based behavioral modeling framework is proposed along with a sensitivity analysis method to support the design process of complex systems. These design tools have been implemented in a computational framework and have been used to model the behavior of various engineering systems to demonstrate their maturity, application and effectiveness. The most significant result is a multi-fidelity model of a hybrid internal combustion-electric racecar powertrain that enabled a comprehensive quantitative study of longitudinal vehicle performance during various stages in the design process. This model was developed using the functionality-based framework and allowed a thorough exploration of the design space at various levels of fidelity. The functionality-based sensitivity analysis implemented along with the behavioral modeling approach provides measures similar to a variance-based approach with a computation burden of a local approach. The use of a functional decomposition in both the behavioral modeling and sensitivity analysis significantly contributes to the flexibility of the models and their application in current and future design efforts. This contribution was demonstrated in the application of the model to the 2009 Texas A&M Formula Hybrid powertrain design.

In this research, component oriented development is supported with design guidance by extending the Axiomatic Design Theory for component orientation, and utilizing domain engineering and ontology mechanisms. Guidance is offered in the form of suggesting missing components and discovering incompatibilities among the candidate elements of software development, corresponding to different phases such as requirement analysis, design, and implementation. A mature domain concept is developed suggesting the availability of reference models for customer needs, software system requirements, software design, and also a rich set of implemented components. As the system is being defined starting with the customer needs and progressing towards components, at every step the developer is presented what is available in the domain and what becomes unavailable. This guidance is based on the selections made so far, utilizing ontology based constraint checking. Feature Models are incorporated for modeling customer needs. Case studies are presented for demonstration purposes.

The use of Web-Based-Collaboration-Systems (WBCS) continues to grow as part of information technology development in the Architecture-Engineering-Construction (AEC) industry. WBCS provide different media channels to support collaboration across geographical distributed teams. However, many companies are still hesitant to integrate WBCS. This research provides an understanding of how WBCS are used in practice. Most distinctively, it obtained practice data from several major US architecture firms and examined about 30,000 transactions produced during actual design and planning projects as practicing architects, engineers and consultants used WBCS. The study investigated what information was used and exchanged among participants during the different design stages. This was related to the different media channels of WBCS. The raw project data has been coded and transformed into secondary data through computer-supported content analysis. Based upon categories from previous literature, such as communication, coordination and design theories, the data has been analyzed for sender, receiver, channel and content of information transmitted. The content has been characterized into work tasks, information handling behavior and design activities. Additional interviews with industry professionals produced information that had not been documented through WBCS and that corroborated the analytical findings. The combination of theory, quantitative, and qualitative analysis has been synthesized into a portrait of WBCS usage that was validated through triangulation. The analysis of digital records of design communication from practice through content analysis is a new research methodology in AEC. The evidence supporting design methods theory shows the changes in tasks and information handling in regards to the project phases. It indicates that the most frequent loops of design activity are Evaluation- Analysis-Synthesis and Evaluation-Synthesis-Evaluation. It documents the actual usage of WBCS based on descriptive statistics and Markov models. WBCS was used primarily as a document repository and calendaring tool. The remote team members used it more frequently than centrally located participants. The study shows the limitations of WBCS: none of the verbal communication was captured. More significant, the entire email exchange took place outside the WBCS. WBCS was used very extensively, if the implementation of the system supported the organizational structure and vice versa.

<p>Video mediated communication (VMC) is a two way real time audio and video communication between remote places. VMC has the potential to be applied favourably to many activities, services and functions in smart homes. The concept of smart homes refers to homes equipped with technological systems and appliances enabling centralised or remotely controllable integrated functionalities and services. </p><p>The main question for the current research work is formulated accordingly: How can spaces for video mediated communication be designed and integrated into smart homes? The governing idea is that there are two main perceptions of space in the design and integration of video mediated communication into smart homes. One concerns the conception of private and public spaces, the other relates to the idea of physical and digital spaces. The interrelationship between these two concepts is supposed to become important when VMC is considered for smart home applications.</p><p>This thesis is written from an architectural perspective. It refers to the functionalistic paradigm here defined basically as the set of essential functions of the home that have to be solved in order to achieve good dwellings. The function of the home can be described as the organisation of space and furniture to support activities and processes in and around it. The thesis is based upon five papers and a covering text providing background, analysis and reflection, as well as ideas on further development. The research method can be described as mainly explorative and design-oriented. </p><p>A principal result from the study is that a novel modality of space, the public digital space, appears when VMC is introduced into smart homes. Further, it is advocated that this modality is a relevant issue for the architectural profession and architectural research. </p>

Syftet med studien är att undersöka musiklärares syn på och hantering av elevers övning. Data har samlats in genom intervjuer med fyra instrumentalpedagoger som arbetar på kulturskola/gymnasiet/folkhögskola eller musikhögskola. Två av informanterna arbetar i huvudsak inom den klassiska genren och två arbetar inom både den klassiska och afro-genren. Intervjuformen var kvalitativ med en övergripande huvudfråga och sedan öppna följdfrågor. Analysen av data är gjord utifrån ett designteoretiskt perspektiv. Resultatet visar att alla informanter använder flera resurser parallellt för att skapa förutsättningar för att elever ska lära sig öva. Hur balansen mellan resurserna ser ut varierar både beroende på vilken arbetsplats informanterna befinner sig på samt i vilken ålder eleverna är. Resultatet visar även att informanterna ser spelandet på instrumentet som ett hantverk och att övning krävs för att bli bättre på hantverket. I diskussionen jämförs lärarnas önskemål med utbildningarnas krav och riktlinjer samt elevernas sociala omgivning. Diskussionen belyser även övning i relation till design och multimodala resurser. / The purpose of this study is to examine music teachers’ views of and management of pupils’ exercise. Data were collected through interviews with four instrumental teachers working in arts school/high school/college or university. Two of the informants work mainly in the classical genre and two in both the classical genre and the Afro-genre. The interview method was qualitative, with an overall main question and then with open follow-up questions. The analysis of the data was performed from a perspective of design theory. The result shows that the respondents use multiple resources simultaneously to create the conditions for the students to learn how to practice. How the balance between resources looks vary both depending on the workplace of the informants and the age of the pupils. The result also shows that the informants see the playing of an instrument as a craft and that practice is necessary to becoming better at the craft. The discussion compares teachers’ preferences with the educational program requirements and guidelines as well as the pupils’ social environment. The discussion furthermore highlights exercise in relation to the design and multimodal resources.

This thesis is situated in a moment when the theory and practice of inclusive design appears to be significantly implicated in the social and economic response to demographic changes in Western Europe by addressing the need to reconnect older people with technology. In light of claims that cognitive ageing results in an increasing disconnection from novel digital media in old age, inclusive design is apparently trapped in a discourse in which digital media products and interfaces are designed as a response to a deterministic decline in abilities. The thesis proceeds from this context to ask what intellectual moves are required within the discourses of inclusive design so that its community of theorists and practitioners can both comprehend and afford the enaction of cognitive experience in old age? Whilst influential design scholarship actively disregards reductionist cognitive explanations of human and technological relationships, it appears that inclusive design still requires an explanation of temporal changes to human cognition in later life. Whilst there is a burgeoning area of design related research dealing with this issue—an area this thesis defines as ‘cognitively inclusive design’—the underlying assumptions and claims supporting this body of research suggests its theorists and practitioners are struggling to move beyond conceptualising older people as passive consumers suffering a deterioration in key cognitive abilities. The thesis argues that, by revisiting the cognitive sciences for alternative explanations for the basis of human cognition, it is possible to relieve this problem by opening up new spaces for designers to critically reflect upon the manner in which older people interact with digital media. In taking a position that design is required to support human cognitive enactment, the thesis develops a new approach to conceptualising temporal changes in human cognition, defined as ‘senescent cognition’. From this new critical lens, the thesis provides an alternative ‘senescentechnic’ explanation of cognitive disconnections between older people and digital media that eschews reductionism and moves beyond a deterministic process of deterioration. In reassessing what ageing cognition means, new strategies for the future of inclusive design are proposed that emphasise the role of creating space for older people to actively explore, reflect upon and enact their own cognitive couplings with technology.

I detta självständiga arbete beskrivs och utforskas lärandet av ett solo av jazzbasisten Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen. Solot är på låten Stella by Starlight från Art of the Duo-skivan med Philip Catherine från 1993. Syftet med arbetet är att undersöka hur den egna lärprocessen designas vid instudering av detta solo. Studien baseras på observationer av mig själv i form av loggbok och videoinspelningar som gjordes under totalt 20 övningstillfällen under hösten 2014. Arbetet utgår ifrån ett multimodalt designteoretiskt perspektiv. I resultatet visas hur jag använder mig av olika semiotiska resurser i lärandet av solot: olika kroppsliga resurser i form av röst och rörelser, betänketid och nedbrytning, basens strängar, kombinationer av olika resurser, men även tekniska resurser i form av olika musik-appar. Slutligen diskuteras, i relation till det designteoretiska perspektivet och tidigare forskning, de förutsättningar som skapades för lärandet av solot samt de övningsstrategier som användes. / In this independent project my learning process of a solo by the jazz bass player Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen is described and explored. The solo is from the song Stella by Starlight from the Art of the Duo album with Philip Catherine from 1993. The purpose is to explore how my own learning process is designed when studying this solo. It is based on observations of myself in the form of a logbook and video recordings of 20 practicing sessions in the fall of 2014. The starting point is a multimodal and design theoretical perspective. The result show how I use different resources when learning this solo: Different bodily resources in terms of voice and movements, consideration and decomposition, the other strings of the bass, combinations of different resources, but also technical resources in terms of music apps. Finally I discuss, in relation to the design theoretical perspective and earlier research, the conditions for learning the solo, and the strategies of exercises.

Design theories and methodologies are guidelines to develop design solutions. Among many, the Axiomatic design theory (ADT) and Systematic design procedures (SDP) are two well-known approaches to design. For practical applications, the choice of the design methodology is difficult as there is no study to compare them. To close in such gap in literature, this thesis presents a study on comparison of these two design approaches. To facilitate the comparison, design of a solid state fermenter was taken as a vehicle. The fermenter chosen for this study is was used for detoxification of phorbol esters from Jatropha curcas. Jatopha curcas is a woody plant and is one of the major sources for the production of bio-diesel as it is readily available and has unique composition. Processing Jatopha curcas for biodiesel also yields protein rich Jatopha curcas seed cake. This can be used as animal feedstock, cattle fodder or live feed stock. It is however known that phorbol esters present in the seed cake hinder the utilization of the seed cake as live feed stock. Solid state fermentation by fungi is an effective process to denature phorbol esters, which has been demonstrated at the laboratory scale. Development of an industrial scale solid state fermenter (SSF) is necessary. This study applies SDP and ADT the same deign problem of SSF and compared based on the result of the design. It is noted that in ADT, the evaluation of design alternatives neither considers the cost of the system under design nor the delivery time of the system, but SDP does. To make the comparison on the same ground, an extension of ADT enabling it to consider the cost and delivery time (or time) was developed. Several conclusions can be drawn from this study and they are: (1) ADT and SDP are complementary to each other and the one that integrates both is more effective to design; (2) The essence of Axiom 2 of ADT is to evaluate design alternatives with all factors that lead to difficulty to realize the design, but unfortunately the information content in the current ADT literature only considers the functional or quality aspect; (3) Previous reports suggest the presence of zigzag process only in ADT, However in this study it is evident that SDP exercises the zigzag process as well; (4) the proposed formulation of information content by taking into consideration of the quality, cost, time aspects is more effective in design practice as quite often the cost and time are very important aspects to the customer. The contribution of this thesis study is of two-fold. First, the SSF designed in this study is a pilot one in the field of the biochemical process and it has potential to be implemented. Second, this study concludes several unique findings of ADT and SDP with their relationship, which have further resulted in an integrated ADT and SDP design approach and a more complete formulation of information content capable of evaluating design alternatives from all aspects rather than the functional aspect only.