Recent research in the usability engineering field tends to emphasize, somewhat neglected, the need of incorporating the joy-of-use factor (the hedonic dimension of usability) into the design of user interfaces. However such design decisions have to be applied with care and proper modesty as they may diminish the product’s overall quality of use. Notions of pleasure and joy are non-task related and partially incompatible with pragmatic usability qualities hence achieving a proper balance is essential. The thesis explores the question of how to establish a balance between pragmatic and hedonic dimensions of usability and whether it is possible to design a user interface which is both highly usable and enjoyable. In order to address these questions a case study was performed, which required further development of an existing prototype, the Zenterio Halfpipe Desktop; an innovative, patented, cross-platform user interface. To achieve high product usability, principles of Human-Computer Interaction and User-Centered Design were applied. The results of the study suggest that ensuring a high level of both aspects of usability: the pragmatic values (such as simplicity or controllability) as well as the hedonic values (such as originality or innovativeness), can result in a product which is perceived as highly usable and fun-to-use. The practical application of involving the joy-of-use factor shows a significant increase in the perceived software appeal. Finally, shortcomings and limitations of the study are discussed followed by future work proposals.

Purpose: The aim of this thesis is to gain an understanding what it is within the vacation offering that makes certain customers dissatisfied with a service recovery effort. Design/methodology/approach: The basis of the thesis is a qualitative approach since we want to gain an understanding about what it is in the service failure and service recovery that make customers dissatisfied. Although, a quantitative approach will be used as a supplement to the qualitative approach in order to seek patterns that we can interpret. By combining these approaches, it should enable us to gain an understanding about the customer’s dissatisfaction. Findings: The study found that the package holiday organizations seem to handle the service recovery process well. Therefore, we propose that when a negative emotion occurs, the customer’s glorification of the offerings benefits get destroyed, creating their dissatisfaction. This makes it hard for the organization to perform a successful service recovery no matter the severity of the service failure since the hedonic values the customer was seeking becomes lost. Furthermore, the customers create expectations when seeking hedonic values, which make it difficult for the organizations to perform their initial offering successfully. We also emphasize the need of an expansion of the service recovery framework. There is a need of a shift from the organizations efforts to the customers experience within the service recovery process. Research limitations/implications for future research: This thesis emphasizes the need for further research concerning how organizations can perform a successful service recovery when hedonic values are a part of the offering. Hence, the focus in future research could be to develop methods for performing service recovery when hedonic values are in play. Furthermore, this thesis could only give propositions about what is causing the customers dissatisfaction, but could not find any core happenings causing the customers dissatisfaction. Therefore, future research could focus to gain a deeper understanding about what source that has caused the customers dissatisfaction. Furthermore, other dimensions surrounding the customers experience needs to be taken into consideration in future research. Practical implications: When hedonic values are in play, the customer’s expectations for the product or service becomes high. Therefore, 6 organizations face a lot more pressure when providing their service or, if a failure has occurred, service recovery. Keywords: service failure, service Recovery, justice dimension, hedonic values, satisfaction

The overall aim of this study was to investigate the culinary practices of Basotho with regard to traditional bread, to characterise breads and to apply the cultural hedonic framework to describe consumers’ perceptions about the acceptance of traditional Basotho breads. The culinary practices of Basotho have been transferred from one generation to the other without or with very limited documentation. The only sourced information was a research done by Ashton in 1939. The knowledge of traditional bread preparation and its acceptance by Basotho consumers is currently limited. Food practices are embedded in culture and every culture has specifications pointing to the hedonic characteristics of food such as taste, appearance, flavour and aroma, which are determined by the context in which the food is selected or consumed. It was important to understand the cultural hedonic framework underlying Basotho bread acceptance. The study was exploratory and descriptive in nature. Food acceptance and cultural hedonic framework theories were used to explore the reasons underlying the choice of bread. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative techniques of collecting data in the three phases. Data related to culinary practices was collected by a structured questionnaire and focus groups in phase 1. Phase 2 was the standardisation of recipes obtained in phase 1. The standardised breads were characterised in phase 3 by describing selected physico–chemical and sensory characteristics of dough and breads. The responses to the questionnaire and descriptive sensory evaluation were statistically analysed and the grounded theory approach was used to analyse data from focus groups. Ten Basotho breads prepared from wheat, maize and sorghum were identified in both rural and urban areas of Lesotho. Preparation of traditional Basotho breads involves preparation of grains (washing, sorting, soaking, dehulling, dry milling and wet milling), mixing/kneading, fermentation and cooking. Steaming method is applied to all breads, but baking and pot-roasting are used for wheat breads only. Younger participants were less familiar with maize and sorghum breads than they were with wheat breads. Unfamiliarity with the sensory attributes of these products, contributed to their lower acceptance. The older participants were familiar with all traditional breads and valued them for use in the important Basotho cultural ceremonies. The movement from the rural areas to urban areas has also changed the traditional bread practices to modern westernised ways. This therefore placed Lesotho into both higher and lower cultural hedonic context such that rural and old people are higher context cultures and urban and younger people are lower context cultures. The type of grain flour used influenced the sensory characteristics of breads. Red sorghum breads reflected dark red crumb and white maize breads reflected white crumb. Fine flour produced lighter breads than coarse flour of the same cereal type. Non-wheat breads were more crumbly, hard and fibrous than wheat breads. The instrumental texture analysis showed plastic deformation for wheat breads, brittle deformation for non-wheat breads and elastic deformation for standard breads. It is recommended that more attention be given to the development, standardisation and improvement of traditional bread recipes in order to produce bread with acceptable sensory attributes. The findings of this study help to understand and interpret the overall scope of Basotho attitude towards breads for the maximum utilisation of local grains in Lesotho. The study adds the Basotho perspective of cultural food acceptance to the excisting global knowledge of food choice regarding traditional food products. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / lk2014 / Consumer Science / PhD / Unrestricted

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Hikaru H. Peterson / Organic has become a familiar term in agriculture, usually bringing to mind the phrases “no chemicals” and “large premiums.” While organic products usually command a substantial price premium over their conventional counterparts, the determinants of this premium are generally unknown. The lack of literature covering organic prices is not from a lack of interest but from a lack of information and data for organic commodities. This study examines two aspects of organic grain prices in an attempt to learn more about the organic grain sector. The first objective was to identify determinants of organic premiums received by members of a Kansas organic grain cooperative. Six different grains along with alfalfa hay were examined using hedonic models and bootstrapping statistical techniques. Findings of the hedonic analyses are as follows. Dairy farms seemed to pay a lower premium for feed grade corn and hard red winter wheat compared to other types of buyers. Buyers located in Kansas tended to provide a smaller premium than buyers located elsewhere. Early contract periods produced a smaller premium than later periods. Shipment timing was much the same, with fourth quarter shipments receiving the largest premium. Additionally, each subsequent contract year resulted in a larger premium. If the cooperative had arranged shipment of the commodity, a lower premium was acquired. Finally, longer contract lengths resulted in a larger premium. The second part of this study examined various price series of organic and conventional commodities to determine if the two markets were related. Using vector autoregressive models, cointegration and causality tests were conducted, and speed of adjustment to a shock in the long run equilibrium and exogeneity were also examined. Of the 43 pairs of organic and conventional price series tested, 29 were found to be cointegrated. Of those cointegrated pairs, 11 causal relationships were found. Five of these causal relationships indicated that the conventional commodity prices led the organic. There were six instances where the organic commodity prices were found to lead the conventional. For most causal relationships, about 5% of the adjustment to a shock, or divergence from long run equilibrium occurred in one week.

The nation’s economy depends heavily on mobility of goods and people. As communities look to improve mobility, many options can be considered, including roadway improvements, congestion-pricing options such as dynamic tolling and toll lanes, and public transit. Investment in public transit services can come in the form of increased and enhanced bus services, including bus rapid transit (BRT), as well as rail transit investments. As BRT continues to grow in popularity in the United States, a better understanding of the mode’s impacts on land uses and economic development is needed. One method of assessing the mode’s impacts is by examining the market value of properties with access to BRT stations. Based on land-rent theory, it is hypothesized that people will be willing to pay a premium for convenient and reliable access via BRT to the central business district (CBD) or other locations with employment, educational, recreational, and shopping opportunities. Very little research has been conducted on BRT as it operates in the present day in the United States. For this work, the hypothesis is that the BRT stations have a positive impact on the market value of residential properties. To test this hypothesis, hedonic price regression models are used to estimate the impact of access to BRT stations on the sale prices of surrounding single-family homes using a case study of the HealthLine BRT system in Cleveland, Ohio that began operating in 2008. Three time periods were examined: 2004, the year construction began; 2008–2009, after the HealthLine BRT service began operation; and 2010–2011, the latest year for which sales data are available. Despite a documented decline in median sale prices of single-family homes in the city of Cleveland from 2005 to 2011, overall results of the analysis were mixed. Although it was prior to the opening of the BRT system, the 2004 data did not show any impacts of the stations on surrounding home sale prices. For the 2008–2009 data, positive and statistically significant impacts were found; however, the positive impacts did not persist in the 2010–2011 data. It would likely be necessary to seek out additional years of data to fully answer the question posed by this research. It is important for decision-makers to have the most accurate and most recent information on the benefits and costs of all transportation alternatives, including BRT. The research presented herein makes a significant contribution to filling the current gap in quantitative research on the subject and provides planners, policymakers, and the transit industry with the best information possible to make sound transit investment decisions in their communities.

[pt] As motivações hedônica e utilitária de compra podem provocar diferentes reações emocionais na avaliação pós-compra, como arrependimento. A abordagem do arrependimento como uma emoção negativa, fruto do processo de avaliação pós-compra, vem ganhando mais atenção e importância no estudo do comportamento do consumidor. Esta dissertação procurou examinar como se manifesta o arrependimento que consumidores experimentam na avaliação póscompra, em função de sua motivação de consumo ser hedônica ou utilitária. Conduziu-se um levantamento (survey), com o questionário sendo enviado por email para uma amostra não-probabilística de 131 consumidores. Os resultados encontrados sugerem que o arrependimento experimentado manifesta-se de forma mais intensa quando a motivação da compra for hedônica e menos intensa quando a motivação de compra é utilitária. / [en] The hedonic and utilitarian motivations of purchase can provoke different emotional responses in post-purchase, such as regret. The regret s approach as a negative emotion, the result of the evaluation process after purchase, is gaining more attention and importance in the study of consumer behavior. This dissertation attempted to examine how it expresses regret that consumers experience in post-purchase, depending on their motivation for consumption is hedonic or utilitarian. We conducted a survey, with the questionnaire being sent by e-mail to a non-probabilistic sample of 131 consumers. The results suggest that experienced regret is manifested more intensely in the hedonic motivation of purchase and it is less intense in the utilitarian motivation.

Au travers du cas de la viticulture bordelaise, nous nous demandons dans quelle mesureles prix fonciers sont porteurs de dimensions patrimoniales. Pour répondre à cette question,nous appréhendons le patrimoine comme un ensemble construit de biens et d’institutions,historiquement et territorialement situé, vecteur de formes organisationnelles spécifiques à laviticulture bordelaise. Nous mettons en évidence que le foncier peut être appréhendé commel’un des biens par lequel se construit le patrimoine viticole, les dimensions patrimoniales dela viticulture bordelaise étant révélées par les préférences des acteurs sur le marché foncier.À partir de cette hypothèse et dans le cadre d’une analyse hédonique, nous étudions les prixdes terres viticoles non bâties, vendues entre 2002 et 2010 en Gironde. Ce travail s’appuie surune base de données géographiques multisources originale et sur les techniques d’économétriespatiale. Nous montrons que la construction des valeurs foncières sur le marché porte les tracesde l’histoire de la viticulture bordelaise et de son rapport, passé et futur, au territoire. / Through a case-study of wine-farming in Bordeaux, this thesis aims to analyse how vineyardprices reflect heritage. We define heritage as a set of properties and institutions which arehistorically and territorially located. Locally, this defines organisations specific to the Bordeauxviticulture. We show that farmland can be an asset through which the viticulture heritage isbuilt. We assume that the value of this heritage is revealed by the preferences of agents onthe farmland market. From this assumption and through a hedonic analysis, we analyse theprice of vineyards sold between 2002 and 2010 in the Gironde department in France. Thiswork is based on an original multisource geographic information systeme data and uses spatialeconometric techniques. We show that vineyard prices on the market are the reflection of thelocal viticulture and of its past and future links to the territory.

Comprendre les facteurs jouant sur l’état nutritionnel du sujet âgé est un enjeu fort. Une première enquête pluridisciplinaire a permis d'interroger 559 seniors de plus de 65 ans de niveaux d'autonomie culinaire différents. Si un effet de l’âge et des facteurs associés à la dépendance est constaté sur les performances sensorielles, 42% de l’échantillon ont des capacitésolfactives et gustatives préservées. Trois outils de mesure des rejets et des préférences ont été développés afin de mieux prendre en compte les attentes des personnes âgées à l’entrée dans la dépendance : la mesure de la sélectivité alimentaire, le questionnaire des styles de mangeur et le choix du menu préféré. Les facteurs les plus associés à un risque de dénutrition sont une mauvaise santé orale ou un état dépressif. Garder du plaisir à manger et de l'intérêt pour son alimentation sont au contraire des facteurs favorables au maintien du statut nutritionnel. La stratégie sensorielle consistant à améliorer des produits en tenant compte des attentes des personnes âgées plutôt qu’en renforçant en saveurs ou en arômes s'est révélée la plus efficace. Les 166 personnes âgées qui ont testé les différentes variantes ont notamment apprécié, pour le produit le plus complexe, la variante améliorée dans toutes ses dimensions sensorielles – etce, quels que soient leurs niveaux de capacités gustatives et olfactives. Même si le vieillissement s’accompagne d’une baisse des perceptions du goût et des arômes, prendre en compte les attentes des personnes âgées et améliorer les produits qui leur sont destinés est une voie pertinente pour améliorer le statut nutritionnel tout en contribuant à une plus grande satisfaction. / Understanding which factors are linked to nutritional status of the elderly is a major challenge for our aging societies. A first multidisciplinary survey was performed with 559 elderly people, varying on their culinary dependency level, from free living people without help to people living in nursing home. Even if an age and dependency effect on sensory performances was shown, 42% of the sample had still good olfactory and gustatory capacities, compared to the young. Three measurement tools to evaluate food likes and dislikes have been developed: the selectivityevaluation, the eater style questionnaire and the menu choice. They will help to take account of the elderly’s expectations, when becoming culinary dependent. Associated factors to malnutrition risk were mainly poor oral health and depression. Having still eating pleasure and interest for food were on the contrary positive factors for a good nutritional status. Sensory strategy aiming at improving products, starting from the elderly expectations, is more efficient than reinforcing products in taste or flavor, trying to compensate sensory deficiencies. The 166 elderly who evaluated the different products, have liked the improved variant of the most complex product – and that, whatever their gustatory and olfactory abilities. Even if ageing comes with sensory perceptions loss, it is worth taking account the elderly’s expectations and improving products. This is a relevant way to improve the elderly’s nutritional status, while maintaining a gold satisfaction level.

This study develops a better understanding of the nature of urban parks from a safety perspective in two international contexts. To achieve this aim, the study is divided into two geographical scales (a macro scale and a micro scale) that test a set of quantitative and qualitative research methods. The macro-scale analysis provides an overall view of the effects of parks in the neighbourhood and at the city level. A particular focus is given to the impact of parks on housing prices. Overall, the findings show that parks function as an amenity that contributes to urban quality, which in turn influences property prices in Stockholm. However, this effect depends on a number of factors such as park type, location, and the level of safety and security of the parks. Safety also matters: Parks embedded in area with high-crime rates are less valued than in areas with low-crime rates. The micro-scale of study focuses on parks as a unit of analysis and looks at the environment of parks and how it triggers crime and affects people’s safety. The first analysis is based on whether—and, if so, how—park environments affect safety (crime occurrence) using the principles of crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) as an inventory tool in a park in an area with a high-crime rate in Stockholm, Sweden. Building on the methodology from the first study, the second study investigates the nature of women-only parks (WOPs) in Karachi, Pakistan, by looking at both the environment of the parks and the users’ and non-users’ perceptions of safety. Regardless of context, the findings show that the safety conditions of a park are highly associated with the park’s environment (design and management features). Of importance to park safety are park size in relation to the number of access routes (entrance and exit points), the opportunities for surveillance in relation to the maintenance and the lighting conditions in parks. A clear lesson is that a CPTED-informed park design promotes guardianship and therefore should be encouraged, regardless of whether it is located in Stockholm or Karachi. However, the urban context does matter to park safety conditions and is highly dependent on the local, city-wide, and national contexts in which the park is embedded. / <p>QC 20171114</p>

Florida is the “Fishing Capital of the World”. With 3.1 million recreational anglers and total recreational fishing-related expenditures of $5 billion in 2011, Florida ranked first in the nation. Given the large benefits of recreational fishing in Florida, assessing the preferences of anglers is critical for sustaining the substantial benefits obtained from recreational fishing in Florida. The objective of this study is to estimate the value of fishing attributes using data on recreational fishing services offered by guides and outfitters. Hedonic price models are applied to estimate the implicit prices of fishing trip attributes and features. The estimated total economic impacts suggest that recreational fishing activities have added $151.19 million value to the economy of Florida and generated $69.73 million in total output. The results can be used by state and national policymakers for future policy design and management of this unique ecosystem service to ensure a sustainable economy.