The purpose of this study is to investigate Swedish motorists' attitudes towards self-driving cars. The thesis highlights advanced ethical decisions and ethical problems that exist for self-driving cars.
To answer the question "What is the attitude of Swedish motorists towards self-driving cars and their actions in ethically difficulty situations?" a qualitative method has been applied. Artificial intelligence is a broad area with many domains, and therefore a delimitation has been made to the automotive industry.
By using interviews and literature studies, the ethical dilemmas have been established for self-driving cars. The results of this literature study have been analyzed together with interviews for the study.
Problems that have been identified with self-driving cars is that they are responsible for the event of accidents and decisive in ethical situations. Another problem identified in this study is the question of whom should be given priority in a situation where an accident is inevitable. The result has revealed that the actions of cars do not always comply with the driver's ethical principles, and that society usually lacks knowledge in the area of self-driving cars. People could act on reflexes in sudden incidents, which is different from a system that can make faster calculated decisions.
This study is a part of a research project between Tenstar Simulation AB and University West with the purpose of developing pedagogical knowledge regarding Tenstar Simulation’s avatar-technology in Virtual Reality (VR) as an educational tool. VR has become more and more common in education with the purpose of making the learning process for students more efficient. The purpose of this study is to explore and investigate the pedagogical implications of VR, with a particular emphasis on Avatar technologies, for a teacher’s teaching context. The data collection method used in this study was semi-structured interviews, the interviews were individual interviews and the participants consisted of both teachers and Tenstar Simulation’s employees. The results indicated among other things that both VR and avatars have pedagogical benefits, where VR is a meaningful tool to facilitate training that is applicable to real life situations. Whereas avatars can afford the teacher more ways to observe the student’s actions in the VR-environment as well as affording more ways of communication between teacher and student. However, one challenge regarding potential teachers being critical to the use of the technologies was highlighted.
COVID-19 pandemic forced many education programmes to switch to e-learning strategies. However, in many cases adopting e-learning occurred urgently and without sufficient study. This research aimed to invistigate aspects that may contribute to enhancing e-learning effectiveness for physicians in a residency education program and help in achieving its goals. This was performed by conducting a synthetic literature review to establish a theoretical understanding of what e-learning strategies might help in this situation. Furthermore, a qualitative analysis was performed on course evaluations survey data to invistigate learners’ perception on joining e-learning courses. Analysis results was used to study their level of satisfaction and compare the findings to the outcome of the literature review in order to build more clear understanding of e-learning success to help education organizers in choosing an effective e-learning strategy.
In this study a research has been conducted to find out how consumers experience Augmented Reality applications. This was done to see which underlying factors are behind each individual's experience. Are there any connections between user acceptance and unique participants that determines how they respond to technology? The research has been conducted with quantitative methods and advocates positivism. Surveys has been the method used to gather data about the user and has primarily been done with the face-to-face method. The users answered the survey after they had tested out features in IKEA Place, the test involved them placing out furniture in the application and then numerically rated the experience through the questions which was in the questionnaire. The result shows that the younger target audience retained a higher average value, median. The distribution test reveal that there were less spread on respective factors PU, PEOU and ATU in the younger target audience. While gender does not seem to have any significance to how acceptance is determined on AR-applications. The research reveals that the acceptance is affected in a negative way with increased age.
The use of mobile devices such as cellular phones and tablets have over the years risen in popularity. This increases the need to develop software that is suitable for these devices (Awad, El-Shihy, 2014). But because of the range of different platforms such as PC-desktops, tablets and mobile phones, app development has become more difficult. As companies want to reach out to as many users as possible the resources are not always there to meet the demand for that type of development. The aim of this study is to explore how developers and companies' reason when facing a choice between different technologies for web development, by examining how a decision is made as well as the conditions that govern that choice. In order to explore this, we have conducted interviews with four different companies and a total of eight interviewees with different roles such as web developer, IT-architect and CEO.
Through our interviews we have concluded that first and foremost it is important to get information of new technology and then the acceptance of new technology. Second it is important to work out the conditions that are required for new technology, and finally to make the right decision when choosing of new technology. In that decision you must consider hard conditions and soft conditions where hard conditions pertain to technical aspects such as performance and effectiveness while the soft conditions refer to staff and their acceptance of new technology.
Furthermore, this study has shown that staff is a very important pillar for decision making, it is after all they in the end who will be working with the new technology and therefore their acceptance of the technologies ease of use and usefulness is vital. However, this study has shown that the size of a company has an effect on the acceptance of new technology with the developers. Despite companies using the same decision strategy the size of the company can mean a different way to communicate within the company. In this study we observed that in a larger company the developers had little to no insight into the decision process and you had to work with what you got. Whereas in smaller companies we observed that developers had much more insight and possibilities to have their voices heard because of the ability to communicate and the closeness to the decision makers. Further it was shown that it was not only important to have the current staff in mind but also future staff, with this we mean that companies have to make themselves an attractive place to work with choices of technology that will attract new developers.
Banks have evolved from providing paper-based banking solutions to providing the most cutting-edge technologies, such as mobile banking. Because there are more phones on the market than PCs, mobile banking has gotten greater attention in recent years. A significant number of blind people rely on smartphone-based assistive technology to carry out everyday tasks. Due to built-in characteristics such as accessibility, usability, and increased interactions, smartphone-based assistive devices are becoming increasingly popular among the blind. In order to give a better user experience, major IT firms have started to add accessibility elements that enable the inclusion of disabled individuals. However, when it comes to how people with visual impairment engage with smartphones, these inclusive efforts fall short.This paper looks at how people with visual impairments interact with mobile apps and the challenges they face with accessibility. The issues were then mapped to the relevant WCAG2.0 success criteria to see how extensive and sufficient WCAG 2.0 is when it comes to covering mobile accessibility issues for blind and visually impaired users. To conduct the research, a prototype of a banking application, specifically a loan application journey, was examined.In order to learn about the users' pain points, five people were interviewed. The results show that most of the success criteria were met, allowing as many people as possible to use the mobile application.
The low completion rate and slow progress in PhD education have been highlighted in many studies. However, the interaction problems and communication gaps that PhD students encounter make this attempt even more challenging. The aim of this study is to investigate the peer interaction problems and ICT based solutions from PhD students’ perspectives. The data collection method was an online questionnaire and in-depth interviews were used to follow up. The target group for the survey was the PhD students in Computer Science at Stockholm University. The total number of respondents for the survey was 53 PhD students and eleven randomly selected PhD students for the interviews. The results reflected a lack of peer interaction as an important issue in the perspective of the students. Based on this, the study showed several ICT solutions that have the potential to reduce the interaction problems and thereby improve PhD students’ collaborative learning and research quality.
Previous research shows that individuals who live a rich life filled with experiences rate their perceived well-being higher. Individuals who, for various reasons, become isolated in care homes as elderly, miss out on experiences they previously enriched their lives with. One way to ensure that these isolated individuals can continue to experience new things, such as art, is by offering immersive experiences in VR.
This pilot project is considered to have largely succeeded in fulfilling its purpose of finding common factors on which to build a possible collaboration between the different administrations of Kommunen (pseudonym). This with the aim of being able to create something reminiscent of a project carried out in Halmstad. The pilot project has also managed to capture what is currently being done to activate older people, which the current plans are, and what visions of how immersive VR could be used in the future exists. Finally, the project has also managed to identify some of the challenges and possible difficulties that the implementation of a similar project could be affected by. To do this, a number of key people within Kommunen's various operations have been interviewed to examine interests, opportunities, conditions and perceived limitations. The responses have then been thematized and analyzed in order to ascertain the results.
The most obvious challenge with such an implementation was expressed by all administrations to be limited resources in terms of finances, personnel and time. However, the conclusion indicates that there is both willingness and good opportunities for collaboration between the various administrations within Kommunen to create immersive experiences in VR.
The purpose of this study was to get a deeper understanding of what motivates older adults to use and learn information and communication technology (ICT). This has been investigated with qualitative interviews with older adults who use ICT. During the interviews the participants were allowed to share their experiences and thoughts about what motivates them to use and learn ICT.
The result of the study shows that older adults are motivated by various reasons to use and learn ICT. In order for them to be motivated to even start using new ICT services or units, they need to be introduced to it and after that a need can be created. This means that ICT must be useful and older adults need to understand the benefits and advantages of using it in order to even want to learn it. Important factors that older adults experience when learning new ICT are clear instructions, repetition, that they should be able to try for themselves, and that the learning session shouldn’t go too fast. The social environment around our informants has also proven to be an important factor in learning ICT.
Syftet med denna studie är att med hjälp av en kvalitativ datainsamling undersöka lärares åsikter samt uppfattningar av att tillämpa Virtual Reality och Augmented Reality i utbildningen. För att besvara studiens frågeställningar har empiri samlats in med hjälp av semistruktureradeintervjuer tillsammans med fem lärare från olika skolor i Sverige. Studiens diskussion har haft sin utgångspunkt i tidigare forskning som undersökt tillämpningen av Virtual Reality och Augmented Reality. Utifrån det resultat av de intervjuer som bedrevs med lärarna gick det att hitta ett antal gemensamma och återkommande teman i lärarnas åsikter och uppfattningar om Virtual Reality och Augmented Reality som ett hjälpmedel inom pedagogiken. Resultat visar att lärarna generellt sett är positivt inställda gentemot en framtid där Virtual Reality och Augmented Reality är ett vanligt inslag i pedagogiken, men de menar ändå på att det finns ett antal hinder som måste övervinnas för att nå denna verklighet.
In today’s technical reality, we are surrounded by a large number of devices with a never-ending growing network. This network is constantly retrieving and sending data, and an unlimited exchange of information is consistently occurring. In other words, this concept is known as the Internet of Things. However beneficial the Internet of Things can be for our world; the security and privacy issues must be addressed. Within this research, the security and privacy issues will be addressed through the access control area. The Internet of Things is a highly demanding and dynamic environment, making access control models complicated and somewhat difficult to design. This research was done to obtain what is required of an access control model for the Internet of Things, to ensure privacy and security. Furthermore, the research focused on how developers are applying the security requirements when designing IoT access control models. The research found that requirements included technical constraints of the IoT environment as well as following the requirements of the CIA(Confidentiality, integrity & availability) triad. In addition, the research found that developers apply different methods to achieve the requirements of the CIA triad.
Internet use has increased greatly as a result of technological developments and social media was expected to have around three billion active users by the end of 2021. However, studies have found that when people spend large amounts of time online, it can lead to an addiction that can negatively affect people's daily lives. The aim of this study is to investigate how students at University West use social media, whether addiction can be identified among students and whether there are differences between men and women. The study has been carried out, as there is not a large amount of similar research that has been done within Swedish higher education, identifying the level of addiction to social media and which is currently seen as problematic with all the social media available. A survey was conducted and answered by students at University West and aimed to identify the level of addiction among students through questions related to six different components. The results showed that Instagram, Facebook/Messenger, YouTube and Snapchat were the most used social media among the students. It emerged that students use these social media mainly to communicate with friends and family, chat, subscribe to/follow groups, communicate for the purpose of their studies and listen to/share music, which is consistent with what previous studies presented. Trends emerged in the responses indicating that female students generally had a higher level of dependency on social media.
Digital technologies are becoming more and more part of everyday life. Digital transformation brings benefits as well as challenges for individuals. New health care technologies are providing high-quality treatments for patients. This study investigates patients’ perception toward one of these new technologies, which is Electronic-Consultation. The focus of this research is on challenges and benefits that patients relate to the usage of e-consultation services in Sweden. Additionally, it studies the impact of individuals’ characteristics on their perceptions toward convenience and effectiveness of e-consultation, and in turn, the usage of it. The research has been done using the quantitative approach through a web-based questionnaire. The results show that people have a general high satisfaction with current e-consultation services in Sweden and do not experience many challenges. As a measurement for individuals’ characteristics, selfefficacy has been applied which refers to individuals' capabilities and beliefs in their own capacity to perform behaviors to produce specific performance achievements. To get more precise data, e-consultation self-efficacy (ECSE) has been chosen respectively. Results show that ECSE has a positive influence on people’s usage of these services. An interesting finding of this study is that positive perception does not always influence the decision toward the level of usage of e-consultation.
The purpose of this thesis was to qualitatively investigate how Swedish LGBTQ people navigate social media and how it affects them in their communities and creation of identity. The thesis findings draw from interviews with eleven persons aged 16 to 44 years. The data of the informants was analysed using a thematic model.
The result showed that LGBTQ individuals have great benefit from social media on many different levels but also that they are inhibited on certain platforms for different reasons because of their LGBTQ identities. The benefit was in the area of two of our main themes of community and identity creation where the informants clearly expressed many feelings such as security, understanding, belonging and acceptance. But also that it benefits from the information they receive from the Internet at large but also from other LGBTQ people online. The theme of openness showed that the informants were selective with the openness of the Internet because of their LGBTQ identities and that for various reasons they kept their sexualities secret partly or entirely on separate platforms where they did not feel secure.
The informants’ stories are largely in line with international research in the field and our informants' experiences could further be understood when they were confronted with these findings and theories in the field. The results of the study showed that the internet served as a haven for the informants and that through social media it had created a large network of contacts with other LGBTQ people both in Sweden and abroad. The conclusions that can be drawn are that social media serves a great purpose for LGBTQ people in Sweden and that through different platforms they are given the opportunity to express themselves and be paired with people in the same situations, which creates security for the informants. The conclusions we can draw are also that a large part of the informants suffer from minority stress due to or fear context collapse that they experience on different platforms.
Digital wallets have become a trendy topic, and a popular method of paying in physical stores. The aim of the study is to gain a deeper understanding of the attitude of Swedish consumers towards digital wallets Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. With the help of semi-structured interviews and previous research, users' attitudes could be more thoroughly established and the question asked for the study was answered. Factors that influence the user's attitude are based on previous research and theory. The factors that have been identified are usability, availability and security. With the help of the semi-structured interviews, it is possible to determine that most user's attitudes to the security of the services are poor. A poorer attitude to one or more factors will make the user's attitude to the whole of the services less favorable. The results also show that respondents feel some uncertainty when it comes to loss of account information.
The main purpose of designing the Stream Control Protocol (SCTP) was tooffer a robust transfer of traffic between the hosts over the networks. For this reasonSCTP multi-homing feature was designed, in which an SCTP sender can access destinationhost with multiple IP addresses in the same session. If the primary path between the sourceand the destination is down, the traffic may still be sent to the destination by utilizingredundant path. And SCTP multi-homing also supports for the concurrent multipathtransfer of traffic. This paper introduces the effect of different network factors likeconcurrent cross traffic, congestion control algorithms and SACK timers on multi -homingfeature of SCTP. Throughput and end-to-end packet delay were used as performancemetrics to introduce the effect of these factors. From the study it was introduced thatconcurrent cross traffic in the network behaves same on multi -homed interfaces and bothinterfaces were affected almost same. It was concluded that congestion control algorithmsalso affects on multi-homing, the RED congestion control algorithm reduced delay andimproved throughput of the SCTP multi-homing. In RFC4960 recommended SACK timeris 200ms, but when 100ms SACK timer was used with concurrent multipath transfer inSCTP (CMT-SCTP) multi-homing, the high throughput and low delay was achieved ascompared with 200ms and 300ms, which indicated that different SACK timers affects onmulti-homing feature of SCTP. All the simulation works have been conducted in NS2network simulator.
Virtual Reality games have a great potential for combining physical exercise and entertainment, which in turn can help make exercise more fun and at the same time help make you want to move more. The purpose of the study is to investigate how the VR experience can affect the motivation to physically exercise and what other factors in games that can affect the motivation. We are investigating this with the help of a qualitative survey where we observe and interview eleven different respondents with mixed experiences in VR. The respondents tried out the VR games Beat Saber and Synth Riders, both are music- and rhythm games. The respondents tried out these games for two ten-minute sessions while we observed their behavior. After the game sessions, the respondents were interviewed where we asked questions about their experiences and opinions about their VR experience.The results show that VR games have several advantages that can motivate the player to want to move more. The majority of the respondents thought it was fun thanks to the music and rhythm while at the same time challenging themselves with harder difficulties and more challenges in the VR-games. The respondents came to the conclusion that VR worked as an excellent complement to exercise but did not consider it sufficient to completely take over as it is not as physically intense as, for example, bodybuilding or solid full body workouts and that you still need fresh air.
This study used the qualitative research approach to investigate stakeholders' activities, stakeholders' opinions on technology, stakeholders' opinions on newcomers and problems of stakeholders in Trollhättan. Interest was on provided activities of the stakeholders'. With the actor network theory (ANT) framework, the study addressed the problem of newcomers to know about stakeholders' activities in Trollhättan. Semi structured in-depth interviews were conducted on seven stakeholders in Trollhättan municipality. A private company, Trollhättan Municipality Employment Office, the Red Cross, a university and three non-profit organizations. Data were analyzed based on summative content analyses. The study revealed that stakeholders arrange varied types of initiatives but it was hard for refugees that were placed in Trollhättan, especially newly arrived in Trollhättan to get access to the initiatives. The study concluded that reaching out to newly arrived newcomers is a major problem for stakeholders in Trollhättan.
In relation with the development of mobile applications and the digitalization of healthcare, actors have emerged in the Swedish market, such as Vårdguiden 1177.se and Kry.se. The actors will, among other things, offer information about diseases to the public, this service is missing on their mobile applications. The purpose of this study is to investigate and compare different methods for presenting text in mobile applications and how the information can be easily accessible to users. Through a literature review, it was possible to determine which design patterns and presentation methods are relevant to the study. The study uses semi structured interviews of a qualitative nature as a method for gathering empirical data with a focus on respondent’s experiences and opinions between the different design patterns for how text is visualized and different navigation patterns. The interview questions that the respondents answered were shaped by the purpose and issues of the study. The collected empirical data showed the respondent preferences regarding text presentation and navigation in mobile applications. Compared with previous research in the subject, similarities and differences like reading comprehension, readability and preferences of design patterns could be extracted.
Although the work in home care businesses most often are mobile, the documentation and information management often occurs in information systems through desktop computers. The need for mobile solutions have become more relevant as they may contribute to increased safety, improved quality and time savings. However, research shows that business knowledge is often overlooked in the development of health systems, which contributes to IT support that are not adapted to the business needs. This study aims to increase understanding on how home care staff believes that mobile IT support the care work and organization routines.
The study was conducted in a home care business through qualitative interviews of six respondents and a thematic analysis model has been used, containing three theoretical areas: Efficiency, Ease of use and Usability, Satisfaction and Motivation. The results show that a mobile IT support would represent a clear advantage in the business and that the existing information system could either be supplemented or replaced. However, the staff still have fears and negative attitudes towards the obstacles and risks of what new technologies can bring to the table.
The purpose of the study is to explore particular challenges faced when designing virtual environments for children with autism, with the purpose of training social skills. Our findings are based on studying autistic behaviour during three years (primary and secondary sources), analysis of related system and other computer mediated assistive technology, as well as general game design. From these studies we have identified eight critical design parameters that need to be adjustable in a system suitable for autistic persons. The parameters importance, their variation range, as well as the need for independent adjustment of these were estimated and verified by experienced expert pedagogues.
The aim of the study was to explore particular challenges faced when designing virtual environments for children with autism, with the purpose of training social skills. Our findings are based on studying autistic behavior during three years (primary and secondary sources), analysis of related system and other computer mediated assistive technology, as well as general game design. From these studies, we have identified eight critical design parameters that must be adjustable in a system suitable for autistic persons. The importance of the parameters, their variation range, as well as the need for independent adjustment of these were estimated and verified by experienced expert pedagogues. Copyright © Freund Publishing House Limited.
Health is a big area and something highly valued in people's lives. This is something that has been sought after throughout all times and has today been supported by smart watches and quantification. Today, smart watches are a fast-growing technology adapted to influence behavior. The market promises good results from these smart watches, and various research areas also express positive opinions about this phenomenon. The result from these quantitative measurements has been viewed as a central force in the process of behavior change, the impact of which has been explored in this study. This exploration of quantified measurements is seen as the first goal in this study. There are surrounding factors related to the smart watches that can contribute to behavior change. Exploring these surrounding factors in relation to measurements from smart watches was the second objective of the study. The study used previous research as well as semi-structured interviews to fulfill its purpose. Theoretically, smart watches can measure any unit. This study was therefore limited to only heart rate, steps, and sleep sensing. The conclusion shows that heart rate but mainly step counters has a significant effect on the behavior change process. The social factor, new technology, investment, and flexibility were identified as surrounding factors but have no significant effect on the behavior change process.
The purpose of this study is to examine if the playing of massively multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMORPGs) impacts upon the social well-being and real-life skills of young adults. Online computer gaming has become a widespread everyday activity and there is an ongoing debate suggesting both positive and negative impacts upon gamer´s well-being and health. This study wants to capture gamers' perspectives. Therefore, a qualitative method was conducted in which the data collection took place through semi-structured interviews. Targeted selection was chosen in the study. Interviews were conducted with six young adults between the ages of 22 - 26, who were considered relevant as a target group. Each of them plays either World of Warcraft (Blizzard, 2004) or Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (Square Enix, 2013). A thematic analysis was carried out. The conclusion of the study is that intensive online computer gaming is not perceived as a socially isolating activity. It enables new friendships and the expansion of social networks among like-minded people. Playing games with other people all over the world teaches you how to communicate, makes you better at English and in performing visual tasks. Taking responsibility for clan activities and effective strategizing helps you to work on your managing skills to become a leader. You only need to actually apply skills you can get from gaming to real life tasks in a meaningful way. Excessive playing of MMORPGs can have negative consequences on the body in the short term. Young adults are more able to limit the time they spend gaming, and to reach better balance between playing games and reconnecting with reality again. Even so, young adults consider problematic gaming to be a serious issue that deserves to be defined as Internet gaming disorder in order in order to get a public health response to a new problem.
With increasing incorporation of digital technologies at work, a growing concern has been with the competence of the workforce. To capture the importance of competence in relation to digital technologies, Information Systems has traditionally employed the concept of “IT competence”. In recent years, the more contemporary concept of “digital competence” has made its way into Information Systems. However, regardless of whether these concepts refer to distinct sociotechnical phenomena, it can be said that they provide similar contributions and limitations. As a result, the focus in both the “IT competence” and “digital competence” literature has been primarily limited to the individual’s abilities to use specific IT artifacts to perform certain work tasks. These limitations have bounded our concept of how the incorporation of today’s digital technologies transforms entire work relations and therefore the plausible ways in which the workforce can adapt to these changes. By revisiting the theoretical value of these concepts through a Neo-Sociotechnical Systems approach, my research aim has been to provide an enhanced understanding of a) the implications of the digital transformation of work for competence, and b) digital competence as a theoretical concept that accommodates those implications. The dissertation provides a revised understanding of “digital competence” through a longitudinal and ethnographic study of two digitally transforming professions, i.e., communications and automotive engineering.
The development of digital product platforms is a prevailing trend in many industries. As firms incorporate digital technologies into established product categories, they need to manage tensions on multiple organizational layers including strategy, technology and structure. Recent findings suggest that tensions are most likely to be managed by creating resource and coordination flexibility. This paper reports a longitudinal case study of developing a digital product platform. By drawing on organizational ambidexterity theory, we identify four mechanisms—re-scripting, centralizing-re-directing and decoupling—through which the firm creates resource and coordination flexibility. The resulting resource and coordination flexibility in turn lead to the transformation of the firm’s strategy, technology and internal structure. The contribution of this study is in adopting an internal perspective and a bottom-up approach which help to theorize the evolution of digitized products into digital product platforms in an emergent way.
As flexibility and generativity of digitized information continuously afford new possibilities, a significant challenge for organizations becomes pinpointing practices that are befitting from various aspects. Two overarching digitization eras have so far determined the greatness of the challenge for organizations; 'computerization', and 'the Internet'. Today, a third era of digitization is marked by the emergence of digitized products. As increasing numbers of code line and software are being incorporated in previously physical products such as cars, they can be used as complete products on one layer, and simultaneously turn into platforms enabling other firms to develop and integrate new components, content, or services on another layer. As digital product platform's multiple design layers need to be open to various applications and agendas, their development requires new justifications and approaches for organizing work. By applying a Neo Socio-Technical Systems frame of reference on the work of engineers as they engage in developing digitized products, we 1. discuss changes of work and organizing along three eras of digitization, 2. provide a rich empirical instance by identifying what steps engineers take in preparation for developing digital product platforms, and 3. discuss the implications of these steps for the literature on practice and organizing. ©Copyright held by the author(s).
As flexibility and generativity of digitized information continuously afford new possibilities, a significant challenge for organizations becomes pinpointing forms and kinds of practice that are befitting from various aspects. Two overarching digitization eras have so far determined the greatness of the challenge for organizations; ‘computerization’, and ‘the Internet’. Today, a third era of digitization is marked by the emergence of digitized products. As an increasing number of code lines and software are being incorporated in previously physical products such as cars, they can be used as complete products on one layer, and simultaneously turn into platforms enabling other firms to develop and integrate new components, content, or services on another layer. As digital product platform’s multiple design layers need to be open to various applications and agendas, their development requires new justifications and approaches for organizing work. By looking into the characteristics of digital product platforms, we discuss the shifts in the work of engineers as they engage in developing digitized products along three main courses of action. We illustrate how these courses of action are formed based on the requirements of developing digital product platforms rather than managerial presuppositions
Det övergripande syftet med studien och rapporten var att bidra till en ökad förståelse kring agila metoder för att kunna fatta beslut om användande av en agil systemutvecklingsmetod är motiverad. Studien var av kvalitativ karaktär och arbetade utifrån frågeställningen "vilkade främsta för- och nackdelarna med att använda en agil systemutvecklingsmetod?". Med hjälp utav djupintervjuer och litteraturstudier samlades empiri och vetenskaplig teori in.Vilken utvecklingsmetod en organisation använder har visats sig vara avgörande för organisationens produktivitet och kvalitet på dess resultat. Den sekventiella metoden har varit normen för IT-utvecklingsprojekt under en lång tid, vilket är orsaken till att vissaorganisationer fortfarande använder den. Allmänna problemen med den sekventiella metoden är att den har svårt att hantera förändringar, svårt att leverera vad kunden efterfrågar samt att modellen skjuter fram riskfulla och utmanande moment till slutet av projektet. Att istället byta till en agil metod kan vara lösningen på dessa problem då metoden är framtagen för att vara flexibel med nära kundsamarbete för att säkerställa att resultatet som levereras stämmer överens med vad kunden efterfrågade. Slutsatsen av studien har visat sig vara att de främsta fördelarna med en agil metod är: Den levererar vad kunden efterfrågar, kan enkelt hantera kravförändringar, är anpassningsbar samt ger enhögre kvalité på slutprodukten. De främsta nackdelarna studien har visat sig vara: Hantering utav dokumentation, svårt att skala upp till stora organisationer samt att metoden är krävande.
In recent years there has been an increase in the number of vegans in the world. The main goal of my research is to understand the vegan struggles in their daily life and study how Facebook might help them solve these difficulties. This master's thesis focuses on the user perspective and how they perceive barriers to follow a vegetarian lifestyle in Spain. The research questions are about finding those barriers and knowing how they could be solved by using Facebook groups. For this purpose, an ethnographic approach has been used.
The target group of this study are vegans who have gone through the time of change and may have had some problems in making that decision. Fifteen vegans have been interviewed to find challenges that have arisen when they have changed their lifestyles. After that, an online ethnography study has been performed by observing the content of a Facebook group, called "Vegetarianos y Veganos – España", focusing on publications where group members were asking for advice, information or solutions.
The results indicate that the investigated group of Facebook is essential for the exchange of information, knowledge and experience. The members also contribute to increased knowledge through publications and comments. But most importantly, the members receive solutions to the problems they share with the group.
The study examined which central design principles in case management and time planning can be applied in the development of a customized ERP system (Enterprise Resource Planning system) within SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises). Customization of ERP systems within SMEs is a complex field with many complications which makes it a problem class. Two SMEs experiencing problems with case management and planning were involved in the study and were used as a basis for developing a custom ERP system. Several wicked problems were identified based on the problem areas that the companies experienced. The study was conducted through an ADR (Action Design Research) approach with qualitative collected data over a nine-week period, where five iterations of development and evaluation were performed with a time span of one week each. The study resulted in a custom ERP system that includes case management and time planning with a good system-to-work fit within the companies. Six design principles were developed during the ADR work and established when the system was fully functional and approved by the involved companies. The design principles answered the identified wicked problems and can be used by others when adapting ERP systems within SMEs.
Like other universities in the world, University West had to adapt to using digital tools to be able to continue education during the Covid-19 pandemic. Zoom is now commonly used by both students and teachers at University West and is still used as a supplement to campus-based education. This study examines active participation and how students experience this in digital teaching at University West using Zoom as a tool. A conceptual framework has been developed and used for this study to create relevant questions for the interviews and to categorize the answers for the results in different thematic. The categories are social interaction, participation, discussion, reactions, communication and questions and answers. The results show that the interviewed students do not feel that digital teaching via Zoom achieves the same level of active participation as it does in campus-based teaching and cannot be a replacement for it. There are aspects like using camera, controlled discussions forums and communication between students and teachers how digital teaching is done that could improve the active participation if it’s used in a way that improves digital interaction.
This paper describes the rationale behind the concrete steps how we systematically have gone through the case selection process as the first phase of a research project named Consequences of the Digitalization of Schools. The project is a single-case longitudinal (5-year long) study and adopts a so called Whole-School Approach. Previous research has criticized case studies for lack of both systematic approach and transparency in the presentation of the case selection process. The purpose of the presentation of this case selection process is to contribute to enhancing understanding of and broadening knowledge on systematic and transparent case selection techniques. The SIRIS database has been used to select a typical Swedish primary school in the chosen municipality where the project will be conducted. The SIRIS database contains annually statistics from all primary schools in Sweden, and is available online for public use. We demonstrate how and why a particular school representing a so called typical school was selected as our case.
The deployment of ICT in school setting is in many ways a complex managerial task that involves several stakeholder groups. Firstly, principals and deans have to relate to the local, regional, national, and international policies and governing systems. Furthermore, the voices of teachers, students and their parents have to be considered and negotiated. In this paper, we explore how school principals’ and municipal IT-managers’ perceive the usefulness and the potential role that ICT play in the school context. In a pilot study of a single school district in a Swedish municipality, we have interviewed representatives from the municipal board of education, the municipal IT-support for schools, and two principals. By using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM3) as an analytical lens to understand the two constructs of “Perceived usefulness” and the possible role of ICT, we conclude that the barriers for successful integration of IT into educational practices requires firstly overcoming the lack of coordinated ICT investment strategy and tracking of ICT. This can be done by having a clearly articulated ICT policy distributed to school staff which we argue will positively influence the perceived usefulness as expressed by principals and their governing body. Secondly, inclusion of ICT in all aspects of teachers’ professional school activities will bring change to school activities and processes.
The use of agile methods is something that is constantly increasing within software development. Therefore, it becomes important to take the human and social factors into account when studying the agile methods. The purpose of this study is to investigate how employees at four private companies experience working with agile methods. The study is based on interviews as a data collection method to provide software developers stories and experiences. Nine respondents from four different companies were interviewed, where all respondents work as software developers.
The result shows that it can be hard to understand and learn how to work agile as companies tend to adapt the methods to their own versions. Furthermore, results from the study points out that because there is no standard in how companies use agile methods, it results in different approaches of agile methods depending on the organisation you work for. The result indicates that work has become more efficient thanks to agile methods, as the team becomes more flexible when it comes to working with customer feedback and customer requirements. The flexibility results in more efficiency as it allows developers to adapt their work based on new customer requirements. The feeling of working as a team is a very important part, where communication and responsibility proved to be key factors to consider when working with agile methods.
The background of this study presents the way that technology for mobile units has developed in a quick pace, which has led to an expansion of smartphone usage. While the smartphone usage has expanded, the websites hasn't followed the same development. The problematic discussion in this area deals with the difficulties of adapting interfaces from a stationary computer to the interface of a smartphone.
Selected mobile sites from different airlines have been investigated, based on how user-friendly they are. The study aims to investigate the problems that can arise when airline sites are not user-friendly, and illustrate how the various design principles are applied in these selected websites. Previous research regarding this topic shows that it's difficult to adapt a website to a smartphone. The same design principles are required as for the ordinary websites, but they need to be performed in a stricter manner. Moreover, earlier research shows that usability is an important aspect in the design of the site for smartphones.
A qualitative approach was applied in the study, where the approach to collect materials for the study has applied the method think aloud, and interviews have been conducted in order to gain a deeper understanding. The result of this study shows that the investigated mobile websites suffer of severly insufficient usability in regards to the investigated design principles and the principles of usability. It is crucial to apply design principles for good mobile usability to the areas that are important for the interaction between the website and the user. The website and its functions should adapt, depending on the device the user uses to browse the website. The website should not confuse the user and should always give feedback on the whereabouts of the user on the website.
When young people today tend to spend part of their leisure time in front of the computer and communicate via various internet-based communication tools may the question be asked if the communication is different from the communication that takes place in reality, and this in turn influences the ability to communicate in an empathic way with their fellow human beings. The question formulation is about if communication via the internet and in real life is different from each other, how young people look at the interaction via the internet-based communication tools, and how this affects them. The method that has been used is qualitative interviews to get as detailed answer as possible by the respondents.The survey results show that young people differ in their way to be, depending on the form of socializing utilized. The selection of social company form are based on mood, the home's rules, weather and season. Internet-based communication tools are used more as a supplement to physical meetings rather than replacing them, in spite of this there is a skepticism from the parents against Internet communication. It can be concluded that the interaction and communication via the internet is not a substitute for physical interaction with other people, but rather serves as a complement to this. An awareness that the communication over the internet can seem harsher exists and it is not used in physical meetings and that communications over the internet seems to be more intense during a short period of adolescence can also conclude that the interaction with other people in real life is not significantly affected.The work does largely agree with what previous research has shown.
Ever since covid-19 was declared a global pandemic in March 2020, countries all over the world, including Sweden, have needed to improve their ability to communicate in times of crisis. Young adults make up a large part of the population and play a big role in reducing the spread of the virus, while at the same time being one of the more difficult groups to communicate with. The purpose of our study is to research how young adults want to receive information in a crisis and to identify suitable ways for authorities to reach out with important information. Our methodology has involved a web-based survey, as well as two group interviews which allowed us to dig deeper and get to know our sample population better. Both the survey and group interviews involved a variety of young adults from the age of 16-25. As the basis for study, we have used the theories uses and gratifications theory, which seeks to understand why people use different media outlets depending on the need they seek to meet and the news-find-me perception, which essentially is the idea that the information we will find us via social media, rather than needing to actively look for that information ourselves. Seeing as how social media plays a large part in the everyday lives of young adults, many previous studies have highlighted its potential as an effective channel to reach young adults with vital information in times of crisis. Our results show that authorities should make use of social media, and the importance of creating ads where both the message and content is adapted to the younger target audience. We have also noticed a desire for the information sent out via email or text to be more personal and relevant to those receiving it. In order to ensure the reliability and accuracy of the information, it is important that it comes directly from a trusted and/or authoritative source – which we in this case have identified to be The Swedish National Health Agency.
This research study brings forth design principles for a search engine that supplies a basis for sustainable decision making. Earlier studies have presented five different perspectives of sustainability: Environment, Social, Economic, Technical, and Individual. These were provided through the Karlskrona Manifesto. Earlier research states that there are no given guidelines for how sustainability should be tackled nor what it really means. The chosen research approach Action Design Research lets researchers develop an artefact for an organizational problem. This study has together with GKN Aerospace in Trollhättandeveloped a search engine in Windows Form and the NoSQL database MongoDB. Throughinterviews with personal at GKN information was gathered about how they perceive technical, economic, and ecological sustainability relative to their organization and regarding their individual tasks. Through the analysis of the five interviews three wicked problems where identified. The foundlings showed there was a need for statistical support to enable better sustainable decisions. There were also different documents with different file formats without a clear structure of how they should be written. Some documents were also unavailable for analysis because they were never converted to digital format. To tackle these problems three design principles was created; Provide visual graphs that can be used as basis for sustainable decision making. Documents should be searchable unaffected by their file format. You should also be able to see the original document to get more statistic basis. The conclusion of the study is that the artefact supports the identified problems that came fourth during the interviews and support sustainable decision making. Although, the artefact must be further developed to be ready for deployment in an organization. Further research of the identified design principles should be examined as well as design principles for classified documents and policy-driven architecture.
This study aimed to evaluate the use of gamification as a method in the initial stage of a recruitment process, with a focus on the experiences and perceptions of the applicants. Gamification is one of the methods used today to improve recruitment and make the process more effective. Games are used as part of the tests done on job applicants to test their suitability in reference to a specific job. The purpose of this essay is to investigate how these methods can affect the experience of the applicants in a recruitment process and their experience when it comes to a fair assessment. The data collection method used for this paper was semi-structured personal interviews. These individuals who have been interviewed have all been involved in a recruitment process that used gamification as a first initiating step. All the respondents are between 20-30 years old and are therefore a part of the age group that gamification primarily targets. The study found that gamification can enhance the applicant's engagement and experience, as well as contribute to a fairer assessment of candidates. However, further research is needed to identify the best practices to maximize the benefits of gamification and minimize its potential negative effects. Overall, the study shows that gamification can be a valuable tool in the recruitment process, but its effectiveness may depend on the attitude of the applicants and the context and design of the gamified tests.
This essay addresses the questions about how and why a font can convey a certain impression, feeling or tonality on a website's headings. As well as the importance of being a designer or other professionals in the field, to have knowledge and awareness of fonts. We have chosen a qualitative method based on our questions. Through interviews and a focus group, we intend to study three fonts from three different fontfamilies. Roboto (sans serif), La Parisienne (regular script) and Fifty four (display /decorative). Theories are obtained from previous studies in the subject, we refer to literature by experts and the data comes from our empirical research that we have collected from our interviews and the focus group. We have developed a website in WordPress, that has been a practical element and has served as a platform for our research by presenting the fonts of our various headings. The results of this study showed that our selected fonts of the headlines were interpreted equally by our informants and everyone answers that it depends on what kind of a typeface it is. Fonts can be interpreted from many different perspectives, the form of a font affects people's interpretation a lot but also interpreted based on personality traits, through basic feelings, past associations, connotation and the majority's response which was consistent. The knowledge of fonts plays a central role in the early design process and it becomes important for a web designer to be able to master typography and understand its powers.
Development of information systems and IT are continuously ongoing in almost every company and organisation. More and more IT development is performed in organisations characterised by professional work. Two studies are performed to point out two types of professions. One study is carried out at an airbase within the Swedish Air Force and one study is done in a health care organisation in Sweden. The aim of this paper is to describe and analyse the different types of professional work in these organisations. Some implications of the use of IT in different types of professional work are addressed
This research study examines when and how an organization can recognize a digitalization of safety training to become sustainable through VR technology. Previous studies have showcased advantages with safety training through VR by reducing cost and eliminate potential danger. Other previous studies show a relation between VR and a reinforced sustainable development. In this regard this research aims to identify a combination of sustainable dimensions with the advantages with safety training in VR. To conclude, these five interviews were made with respondents from a project where VR was implemented to their safety training. The interviews were structed to find acceptance and usage for VR technology and through implementation. The result from the study showed how the organization performed and achieved acceptance and sustainable dimensions made through the accessibility of the technology. In the discussion the result is presented of how the organization underpins their sustainable development by implementing VR to safety training.
With an increasing amount of people on the internet, competition arises for companies with an online business. The purpose of this research has been to find out how the UX design of a company's website can affect the company. Can a company's website with a good UX design gain a compe44ve advantage against a company's website with a bad UX design. How much can the UX design affect a customer, is the appearance even important on a company's website?
Through a comparative quantative method, a survey was conducted where two company pages were compared based on the user's experience of the most basic aspects of a web page. Aspects like the navigation, appearance and its content. Based on these aspects, an assessment was made regarding how good or bad the user experience was on the web pages. Did the company make a credible impression based on the experience around these components?
The survey shows that it actually has an impact when it comes to building reliability, which a good user experience entails. This can be observed in the result of the survey which shows the relationship between the result of the comparison and the theories mentioned in this survey.
This study examines how digital user interface systems with digital nudges shaped based on FBM (Fogg Behavior Model) and the PSD model (Persuasive Systems Design) can be used for the promotion of sustainable consumption patterns.
The study's data collection methods are experimental user tests in a semi-controlled environment where user data on a mobile-based user interface design is collected for analysis. The user interface tested was of a prototype mobile app, made for the purpose of this study. Complementary interviews of the participants were performed in connection with the tests in order to gain a deeper understanding of the design situation and the factors that may have an impact on the users' choice, their experiences and attitudes, among other things.
The results of the experiment in which various digital nudges are tested are interpreted and analyzed from a persuasive design perspective using the FBM and PSD models that conceptualize persuasive design. The intention is to see which factors lead users to more sustainable consumption behaviors.
We conclude with a discussion on how to apply these models in order to design nudges in context for sustainability purposes. The discussion is intended to lead to an inductive conclusion about which variables and which conditions work best to lead users to more environmentally friendly alternatives using nudges.