Thesis (Ph.D.)--Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Mynatt, Elizabeth D.; Committee Member: Abowd, Gregory D.; Committee Member: Edwards, W. Keith; Committee Member: MacIntyre, Blair; Committee Member: Moran, Thomas P.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010. / Committee Chair: W. Keith Edwards; Committee Member: Blair MacIntyre; Committee Member: David McDonald; Committee Member: Ellen Yi-Luen Do; Committee Member: John Stasko. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 189-211).

Syfte: Företag har svårt att positionera sig på webben då de misslyckas att utveckla sina webbsidor för att stödja dess varumärkesstrategi. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur ett företag kan tillämpa designstrategi ur ett användarcentrerat designperspektiv för att stödja företagets övergripande varumärkesstrategi på webben. Kunskapslucka: Denna studie har identifierat en kunskapslucka vad gäller hur företag fastställer och verkställer designstrategi för att stödja övergripande varumärkesstrategi på webben. Metod: Studien avser att undersöka tillämpning av designstrategi genom att ta fram ett designförslag som baserats på en användarcentrerad designprocess. För att göra detta har intervjuer med experter samt expertutvärdering av webbsidor utförts för att kartlägga en billeverantörs återförsäljares domän, baserat på motsvarande strategi för köpresa som är avsedd för att leda besökaren till billeverantörens produkt- och tjänsteutbud som representeras av återförsäljare och dess webbsidor. Denna datainsamling ligger till grund för persona och kontextscenarion som översätts till identifierade krav som motsvarar produktens designstrategi. Designstrategin ligger sedan till grund för det skapande momentet i den användarcentrerade designprocessen, där iterativ design leder till förädlande av framtagna ramverksskisser till interaktiv prototyp. Resultat och slutsats: Resultatet av studien som var en framtagen interaktiv prototyp visar att användarcentrerad design som tillämpar designstrategi, genom att fastställa företagets och användarens mål och behov samt innehålls- och funktionalitetskrav, är ett alternativ som tillåter strukturerad förädling av en webbsida till den punkt att webbsidan uppfyller sin designstrategi. Resultatet visar också att beroende på hur grundlig en kartläggning är och hur välformulerad designstrategin är påverkar hur väl framtagen webbsida, vare sig det är en prototyp eller slutprodukt, uppfyller sitt syfte. / Purpose: Corporations experience difficulties positioning themselves on the web as a result of not developing their websites in a way that is inline with their overall business strategy. The purpose of this study is to explore how corporations should apply design strategy, based on a user-centered design perspective, to support their overall business strategy on the web. Originality/value: This study has identified a knowledge gap in terms of how corporations define and apply design strategy in order to support their overall business strategy on the web. Methodology: This study aims to research the application of design strategy by creating a prototype through the use of a user-centered design process. This was done by interviewing experts as well as evaluating websites, in order to explore the domain of a car manufacturers retailers, which was based on the corresponding strategy of leading the visitor to the car manufacturers offerings that are represented by the retailers and their websites. This data collection was the foundation in the creation of a persona and context scenarios that was translated into identified needs that represented the products design strategy. The design strategy in turn was the foundation for the creating phase of the user-centered design process, where iterative design lead to refining framework sketches and an interactive prototype. Findings and conclusion: The study which resulted in an interactive prototype shows that user-centered design, which applies design strategy by defining the corporations and the users goals and needs, is an alternative that allows for structured refinement to the point that the website fulfills its design strategy. The results also show that depending on how well the domain exploration is executed as well as how well the design strategy is defined will affect the resulting website and to what extent it fulfills its purpose, whether it’s is still a prototype or if it’s the end result.

The design of software products or services with good user experience (UX) requires a good understanding of the people the product is intended for. One of the design processes that places emphasis on the needs of the people is the user-centered design process. This study creates a serious game as a tool to learn the user-centered design process in order to create awareness of user-centered design practices among UX and non-UX practitioners. To accomplish this, design science research methodology is adopted to allow creation of the game by describing the problem, defining the game requirements, designing and developing the game and finally demonstrating and evaluating it. The evaluation of the game was conducted in three main areas, one to assess the content of the game, the second to assess the functionality of the game and the third to assess the learning potential of the game. Based on the results of the evaluation conducted it is revealed that the content presented is adequate and the participants are able gain concepts about the user-centered design activities, the roles involved in such a process and the various UX techniques employed.

This thesis considers claims of discrimination and the interfaces that six platforms use as companies in the sharing economy. In 2015, Benjamin Edelman, Michael Luca, and an Svirsky did an experiment with Airbnb to test the discrimination of names that sounded distinctly African American. Before and after their findings, there were members of the community who claimed that they had been discriminated against, some suing the company for not upholding their anti-discrimination policy. This leads to the question of how is one able to discriminate against someone whom they have never met and lives thousands of miles away? What information do they have to hold against them? As a result, this thesis provides a rhetorical analysis of the interfaces of six companies of the sharing economy.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-02T11:16:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2014-02-03Bitstream added on 2014-12-02T11:21:02Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000798731.pdf: 6789576 bytes, checksum: 05117e1498078132ab9979012dcbce1b (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / É muito importante que os aspectos ergonômicos como segurança, conforto e bem estar sejam considerados na manipulação de objetos para que contemplem as capacidades física e mental dos usuários, bem como características variadas, como gênero e idade. As embalagens são exemplo de interfaces manuais comuns do cotidiano, dentro desse exemplo encontram-se as Embalagens Especiais de Proteção à Criança (EEPCs) que necessitam de mais de um movimento para serem abertas, o que pode levar o usuário a ter sérias dificuldades na tentativa de abertura, gerando constrangimentos principalmente naqueles com menores capacidade biomecânicas, como as mulheres ou os idosos. Por isso, o design de embalagens deve estar atento aos requisitos ergonômicos a fim de disponibilizar produtos que sejam confiáveis e seguros. No caso das EEPCs, elas devem ser ao mesmo tempo acessíveis a idosos e de difícil acesso para crianças. No Brasil, tais embalagens não são obrigatórias, mas podem ser encontradas em diversos produtos, como por exemplo os enxaguantes bucais que se utilizam de uma tampa com sistema de abertura do tipo aperte e gire (squeeze and turn). Entretanto, muitos estudos mostram que essas embalagens difíceis de abrir, especialmente por parte dos idosos. Por esse motivo, esse estudo objetivou avaliar e analisar a influência do design na usabilidade e na aplicação de forças manuais durante uma simulação de abertura de enxaguantes bucais com tampas de proteção. Para isso foi realizado um teste de usabilidade com 67 sujeitos de diferentes gêneros e faixas etárias, utilizando três embalagens de enxaguantes bucais com diferentes formatos. Também foi realizada uma avaliação biomecânica (preensão de torque), em atividades simuladas com 113 indivíduos de diferentes gêneros e faixas etárias, utilizando as mesmas embalagens. Os resultados mostram que a embalagem com maior tampa oferece as melhroes condições de usabilidade e... / It is very important that the ergonomic aspects such as safety, comfort and well-being be considered in manipulating objects to contemplate the physical and mental skills of the users as well as various characteristics, such as gender and age. Packages are examples of common manual interfaces of everyday life, among those examples are the Child Resistant packaging (CRP) that require more of one movement to be opened, which leads the user to serious difficulties in opening, causing embarrassment especially in those people with lower biomechanical capabilities, such as women or the elderly. Therefore, the packaging design should be aware of the ergonomic requirements in order to develop products that are reliable and secure. In the case of CRP, they must be bath accessible to elderly and inaccessible to children. In Brazil, such packages are nat mandatory, but they can be found in several products, such as mauthwashes with a squeeze-and-turn cap system. However, many studies have shown that those packages are considered difficult to open, especially to the elderly. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate and analyze the influence of the design in usability and the application of manual forces during an opening simulation of mouthwashes with squeeze-and-turn caps. So, a usability test, with 67 subjects of different genders and age group, was performed using three packages of mouthwashes with different shapes. A biomechanical evaluation (grip torque) was also performed in a simulated task with 113 individuals of different genders and age group, using the same packages. The results showed that the package with the largest cap affers the best of usability and force application, mainly due to the design of the cap, because its size allows better visualization of the opening instructions, that cap also has grooves only at the places where it should be pressed, which provides greater friction between cap and fingers, enabling a higher application... / CAPES: 303138/2010-6 / CNPq: 473235/2011-0

Thesis (DTech (Design))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2015. / Participatory Design (PD) is increasingly being used as a methodology by local government, private designers and design researchers in the Western Cape, South Africa, to democratise the design of product service systems (PSS). Activity theory, specifically Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) offers PD researchers and practitioners involved in the collaborative design and development of socio-technical PSS’s an interpretive lens through which to a) identify existing and potential contradictions and tensions within and between work activity systems for design interventions, and b) provide designers with a conceptual model of investigation. In the last decade participatory development studies have interrogated public participation and approaches to the involvement of civil society in their own development, essentially embracing a shift from passive participation to active participation. PD and participatory development share a number of beliefs, methodologies and goals. This thesis explores the potential of CHAT in contributing to the extension of PD practices, beyond a workplace focus and into the sociotechnical development of communities at large. Legacy projects and activities - those aimed at extending the impact of emergent design and innovation - arising out of Cape Town’s designation as World Design Capital 2014 often require community-based participatory design (CbPD) and the development of socio-technical PSS through holistic approaches, centred around participant needs, activities and aspirations. This approach can contribute to social capital and more active citizenry. The research presented in this thesis draws from an in-depth CbPD project based in an informal settlement in Cape Town, South Africa. The project focussed on solid waste management (SWM) work and life activities and resulted in co-designed PSS solutions. Based in a quad-helix partnership between local government, the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, private designers and the community members themselves, this project a) tested CHAT in the fields of CbPD and PSS design, identifying tensions and contradictions as opportunities for design intervention and, b) produced conceptual and process models, which blend CHAT and service design, for further testing in the design of socio-technical PSS. The overall result is a homegrown methodology for CbPD

Thesis (MTech (Design))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2015. / Whether one is fascinated by the night sky as a child, or as a professional astronomer looking back to the beginning of time solving life’s big questions; at some point in our lives we have curiously looked up at the heavens above. The desire to explore the universe has lead us to constructing larger and more advanced telescopes, with the sole focus of observing deeper into the cosmos in an attempt to unravel its secrets. Like with most other technological advances, it has created advanced and technically complex control rooms. Based on a design ethnographic study this thesis will focus on the exploration of the effects of complex interfaces of a control room environment and its users, where one of the leading twenty first century telescopes of its kind, Southern Africa Largest Telescope (SALT), is studied. While the STS framework and policy debates concerning the rapid development and integration of complex human and non-human systems into larger systems become common practice. The design ethnographic study revealed that the operation of the SALT telescope and the research being conducted by the astronomers is clearly hindered by poor control room design. The study identified relationships between the framework and the empirical findings, which was used to frame a design pilot study to determine if further design intervention would have a positive impact on the interaction of a control room system. This project will consist of: a literature review, an ethnographic study and the analysis of the findings, design framing of a pilot study, a design pilot study, and an evaluation of the study. The results from the design pilot study clearly show that the application of a design intervention to a control room environment could potentially impact the space positively and reduced frustration, improve comfort, increased efficiency in the users work practices, and ultimately amplified productivity. Providing an appropriate starting point for the exploration of possible solutions for identified challenges experienced in complex control room environments, more importantly it contributed to narrowing the socio-technical gap, between the mechanical and research departments of a leading international optical telescope, SALT.

Thesis (MTech (Industrial Design))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2016. / Simulators are used for many different purposes, among them physical rehabilitation and the training of differently abled learner-drivers. In South Africa, however, the extent of the latter type of simulators is limited to paraplegic learner-drivers only. The reason is that locally sourcing the necessary equipment to adapt commercial simulators for the training of differently abled learner-drivers presents a problem. The concept of Universal Design stipulates that as many individuals as possible should be able to use a particular product. Consequently, a simulator for differently abled learner-drivers should accommodate as many such persons as possible. However, applying Universal Design in the area of design researched for the present dissertation adds further complexity due to the unique nature of the physical limitations experienced by individuals. A differently abled driver puts an extreme constraint on the design of a product - and becomes a limiting user. Nevertheless, this dissertation adopts a Universal Design approach to investigate the possibility of designing such a simulator in South Africa, as well as its viability. A limiting user was included in the research to represent the bigger differently abled community. Field research was carried out by implementing a Participatory Design process. Furthermore, a team was selected according to a Meta-Design mind-set, including professionals from engineering, clinical psychology and occupational therapy. The leader and researcher was an industrial designer.