Forside -> Studenterpris -> 2008 -> Indstillede projekter

Indstillede projekter

Marianne Krog Gadeberg:
"Natsværmerens Flaksen - et studie af storytellingens dynamik hos The Moth"
Specialet handler om storytelling med analytisk fokus på den amerikanske, New York-baserede storytelling organisation The Moth. The Moth blev dannet i 1997 af forfatteren George Dawes Green, som da han flyttede til New York savnede sin sydstats storytelling-aftener under natsværmernes flaksen og derfor grundlagde en aktivitet i sin dagligstue, som siden er vokset ifølge organisationens egen grundlægger-myte. I dag arrrangerer The Moth en serie af storytellingsshows, et Community Outreach program, samt et Business program, og det er sidstnævnte, der er specialets hovedfokus.

Teoretisk tages i kapitel to udgangspunkt i den danske storytelling-litteratur (Fog, Budtz, Yakaboylu, Niss og Flarup m.fl.) som sammenlignes med amerikanske traditioner (Denning). Den kan kategoriseres som pragmatisk kogebogslitteratur, som snarere sigter mod at levere brugbare modeller end teoretisk, akademisk diskussion, men selv med dette forhold taget i betragtning kan den med rette kritiseres for at være utilstrækkelig i den måde, den forholdsvis ureflekteret bygger på dogmer fra den litterære narratologi som fx Greimas' aktantmodel. Som et korrektiv introduceres Thyssens kontekstuelle organisationsperspektiv, hvorefter fokus rettes mod The Moth.

Kapitel tre er en introduktion til The Moth's principper, veloplagt krydret med illustrative eksempler fra praksis. I kapitel fire analyseres en workshop hos OgilvyOne, og der fokuseres på, hvordan principperne afbalanceres af hensyn til konteksten (de konkrete relationer mellem fortæller, fortælling og tilhører) og den dynamiske proces. The Moth har på den ene side udviklet et sæt præskriptive dogmer, men lægger på den anden side angiveligt stor vægt på processuelle og kontekstuelle elementer, hvilket fører til undtagelser fra regelsættet, men spørgsmålet er, hvordan den rette balance findes, om The Moth har fundet den, og hvordan en teori og metode kan udvikles til at sikre dette? Specialet afsøger som svar et teoretisk grundlag for at afbalancere den litterære narratologis dogmer med ikke-skriftlige praksisformer, og finder svar i Fluderniks "naturlige" narratologi og Ongs overvejelser over mediemæssige og teknologiske udviklinger i narrationen.

Endelig vender specialet i kapitel fem tilbage til begyndelsen og The Moth's grundlægger-myte i en kritisk diskussion af potentielle problemer ved storytelling med hjælp fra Barthes' mytekritik. Specialet afrundes og opsummeres i kapitel seks.
Vejleder: Søren Pold, Informations- og Medievidenskab, Aarhus Universitet

Tue Pedersen, Michael Harsvik og Peter Vindelin Nielsen:
"Cam On! En analyse af webcams anvendelighed til asynkron diskussion i en videoblog"
Afhandlingens emne er perspektiverne i at anvende webcam/mikrofon i asynkrone diskussioner på nettet, således at interaktionen bliver lyd- og videobaseret. Formålet er at undersøge hvilken betydning mediet har for diskussionen. I projektet designes og udvikles prototypen for et værktøj (Cam On!), som muliggør sådanne videobaserede diskussioner. Forfatterne afprøver værktøjet på en gruppe bestående af gymnasieelever og analyserer den diskussion gruppen gennemfører, og forsøger at besvare deres målformulering: hvordan fungerer mediet i forhold til diskussionerne.
Vejleder: Helle Frederiksen, RUC

Karen Johanne Kortbek
"Kroppen som interaktionsredskab"
Traditional interaction techniques only challenges limited parts of the human body - usually only the eyes and the pointing finger. Recently, however, a growing interest has emerged in developing new perspectives on designing for bodily interaction. These designs function within a wide range of domains and scopes of application, e.g. experience environments, playgrounds, commercial game applications, exercising, artistic installations, and public as well as private spaces.

This thesis explores how the body can be used in interaction contexts in relation to interaction devices, and by this - how to comprehend the body as an interaction device. This has been addressed through a technical survey, empirical studies of a case and the development of a framework, based on existing theories on bodily interaction. The technical survey examines how bodily interaction is made possible by the application of different techniques, especially camera based tracking. In some systems, the means of input is the location of the body, in others the weight, acceleration, pulse, etc. I argue that the utilized technology is significant for the bodily interaction, as each technology holds possibilities as well as limitations that should be considered when designing.

Further, empirical research from the Wisdom Well project is an example of designing bodily interaction. The Wisdom Well is an interactive floor consisting of a 12 m2 glass surface with bottom projection and camera-based tracking of limbs (e.g. foot, hand and knee). The Wisdom Well supports collaborative co-located play and learning through communication and negotiation among children. Thus children can use the full faculty of their bodies while interacting with digital contents and socially with each other.
Several learning applications were developed for the Wisdom Well (e.g. Stepstone) using participatory design with children and teachers. We particularly benefited from "Fictional Inquiry" workshops that explored potentials and revealed challenges in utilizing bodily-kinesthetic potentials for an interactive floor.

Theoretically, I have approached the research by looking into different concepts or theories that involve the body and bodily movement in interaction. Learning literature on the theory of multiple learning styles points out the beneficial connection between bodily movement and learning. In HCI literature the concepts of "embodied interaction", "tangible interaction" and "kinesthetic interaction" designates different approaches to bodily interaction being discussed. Based on these approaches I contribute to a broader understanding of bodily interaction by introducing a conceptual framework with six different levels of involving the body in interaction.

The six levels are:

1. "Traditional input-device interaction"
2. "2D-gestural interaction"
3. "Tangible embodied interaction"
4. "3D-gestural kinesthetic interaction"
5. "Kinesthetic interaction" and
6. "Free movement interaction".

The framework focuses on how the body relates to interaction devices, and proposes a development from focusing at bodily interaction with a device (level 1 & 2) - to bodily interaction through a device (level 3 & 4) - and finally focusing on the body as interaction device (level 5 & 6). I use the framework to discuss different examples including the Wisdom Well.

Finally, I examine feasibility using the body in interaction design for various applications.
Vejleder: Kaj Grønbæk, Datalogisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet

Dave Claus Müller, Jonas Jermiin Ravn Moll og Martin Baere Pedersen:
"Tradition og transcendens. Evaluering af design games som Participatory Designmetode i organisatorisk kontekst"
Dette speciale undersøger, hvordan design games kan styrke princippet om reel brugerinddragelse i IT-designmetoden MUST.

Specialets problemformulering er: Hvilke kvaliteter ved design games kan styrke princippet om reel brugerinddragelse i MUST, med særligt fokus på dialektikken mellem tradition og transcendens?, herunder 1. hvad karakteriserer IT-design i en organisatorisk kontekst? og 2. hvad karakteriserer design games.

IT-design har haft stor succes med at benytte etnografiske metoder og inddrage brugere og interessenter i designprocessen, for at opnå viden om brugernes arbejdspraksis. Gennem en forståelse af design som en dialektik mellem tradition og transcendens, mener vi dog, at IT-design feltet kan styrkes ved, at udvide brugerinddragelsen til også at gælde de transcenderende designaktiviteter.

Vi beskriver en designfilosofi ud fra Pelle Ehns operationalisering af filosofferne Ludwig Wittgenstein og Martin Heidegger, der hjælper os til at forstå, hvad der karakteriserer IT-design, og hvilken designoptik der er nødvendig for at kunne inddrage brugere som meddesignere. Denne optik er i modsætning til det rationalistisk, ingeniørprægede udviklingsparadigme, som har grund i en cartesiansk tilgang.

Vi undersøger design games som metode til reel brugerinddragelse. Dette gør vi ud fra en række empiriske studier, hhv. et litteraturstudie, en interviewundersøgelse samt ved at afprøve design games i praksis. Gennem en analyse af design games som designværktøjer og teknikker identificeres en række kvaliteter, der kan styrke brugerinddragelse i IT-design og gøre brugere og interessenter i stand til at indgå i designprocesser som reelle meddesignere. Derudover sætter vi fokus på design games' kontekstafhængighed, og vi giver retningslinier for, hvordan design games designes. Her peger vi på begreberne åbenhed og begrænsning som centrale for forståelsen. Vi konkluderer, at design games med fordel kan inddrages som designværktøj i MUST, da spillene besidder kvaliteter, der kan styrke princippet om reel brugerinddragelse.
Vejleder: Jesper Simonsen, RUC

Nadia Lauridsen, Anne Mette Ebbesen:
"Digital vidensfacilitering i DR"
This thesis has three main purposes. One is to explore and challenge ourselves as Participatory IT Design consultants through the MUST method, implementing a Danish acronym for theories and methods of initial analysis and design activities, with use of ethnographic field research and to demonstrate the end result in a prototype design. The second is to support our case the Media Research department of the Public Service media company, Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR), in order to help them understand how they can facilitate the sharing of their knowledge to their target group, in this case, the DR Programme Production through an IT Knowledge-sharing system. The third purpose is to expand MUST with knowledge-sharing perspectives in order to support our understanding within the field and hereby to provide the DR Media Research department with valid and useful results. The three purposes are extracted from our interest in knowledge as valuable assets, and thereby how companies can exploit these in the most efficient ways possible. In relation hereby we aim for an understanding of how companies can exploit technologies to collect stock and make explicit the large amount of accumulated knowledge that often exists as tacit knowledge. This knowledge is often hidden or difficult to access as to the fact, that it lies either within the employees, in complex databases or elsewhere and therefore is difficult to diffuse and be used by other employees.

DR Media Research wishes to share some of their accumulated knowledge to other units within DR's Programme Production. Through a developed website they have tried to make this knowledge accessible and exposed on DR's intranet, but this has failed. The website has not been used, why DR Media Research have called for an investigation of the reasons here for. We have provided DR Media Research with a prototype of a new website called Insight as part of our vision for an integration of a redesigned IT knowledge-sharing system. The prototype is based on results from 3 consultancy reports made during the period of the investigation. A part of the vision is a list of suggestions with criteria of how DR Media Research can reach the vision and what this demands. We have collected data primarily through interviews, observations of work practices and a workshop, in order to explore the problem and to directly involve DR Media Research. We have integrated knowledge-sharing perspectives as analytical tools in the pre-investigation, as they relate to the pragmatic work method MUST. By this we further conclude that the constellation can be integrated as a natural part of MUST for the future prospect of pre-investigations of knowledge-sharing systems.
Vejleder: Leif Bloch Rasmussen, IT-Universitetet i København

Yue (Stephanie) Xi:
"Design for Worker's Redesign: Improving Efficiency in Distribution Practice"
Designing a system in order to improve efficiency in work practice is gaining more and more attention. Traditionally efficiency is achieved through specific planning and workers' repetitive performance. In this thesis, I explored ways to improve efficiency through designing a system which can support workers' redesign of their practice. My thesis project was focused on the distribution practice in Dangaard Telecom warehouse, where I conducted design activities including field visits, workshops and user tests. In this thesis I developed a design vision, design principles for resignable systems and guidelines for methods, seeking to answer my research question - how to enable workers to redesign their practice in order to improve efficiency? Synthesized from the findings of my research, I suggest a redesignable system aiming at improving efficiency could have the following three features: 1. Providing opportunities for workers' redesign in pebble-pipeline structure according to system requirements; 2. Augmenting workers' activities of redesign with technology and artifacts that fit with local logics; 3. Supporting workers' willingness to redesign through respecting and enhancing the sense of shared goal. The final design vision embodies these principles, aiming at improving efficiency of distribution practice in Dangaard Telecom warehouse from three aspects: the working process, the infrastructure and the artifact (an "intelligent trolley"). In my thesis I also have developed guidelines for understanding and building visions upon the local logics (how workers utilize and make sense of local resources) and system requirements (what the outcome of work should be). I suggested researchers and designers 1. Get access to the informal activities by extracting particular problem solving moments; 2. Provide contrast to evoke reflection and analysis; and 3. Forge concepts and visions in both the overall and individual levels of system and from the perspectives of both outside researchers and inside practitioners.
Vejleder: Jacob Buur, Mads Clausens Instituttet, SDU

Svenja Désirée Weinmann:
"Applied Conversation Analysis in User Centred Design"
The field of user-centred design wants to observe and understand the social world of, in their particular case, the user, and it wants to design for interaction happening within this social world; therefore, it often tries to borrow from the social sciences and utilize the borrowed knowledge within the design process. But when using frameworks and analytical mindsets from the social sciences, the designer must be aware of a tendency to extensively use concepts and descriptions of the social event he is looking at without empirically investigating the meanings those have in particular settings, to particular participants in particular activities, and of course throughout the time. The human beings are active participants, making and shaping the social world, largely by means of their language code. From the above, user-centred design is then asked to take other frameworks into consideration, those of which have become fully aware of the fact that in order to observe and extract the meaning (in the 'making') of an interaction between human actors, the researcher has to become utterly familiar and immerse himself in the empirical world under investigation.

This master's thesis makes such a case by introducing the micro-analytical perspective on talk-in-interaction, conversation analysis (CA), to user-centred design (UCD) and exploring the relationship between these two frameworks. It will clarify how conversation analysis challenges the way many social sciences work so far with its intense and relentless focus on the 'mundane', the seen but unnoticed interaction in our lives, on everyday conversation. The reader will be provided with theory (Part 1) and considerable empirical evidence (Part 2) in order to answer the research questions of how conversation analysis supports user-centred design and how it can actually be applied within a user-centred design project.

The theoretical part will draw upon important thoughts on talk-in-interaction and particularly 'talk as action' and 'talk as meaning formation' in the field of linguistics, philosophy and social science, which preceded the advent of the discipline 'conversation analysis'. Then there will be given a background on what conversation analysis (CA) is and examples of how it was applied in design so far focusing on three design research projects.

The empirical part describes the attempt of applying CA in an ongoing user-centred design project ("Design for Cultural Pluralism" (CUPL)). There are four data workshops staged, with design researchers and practitioners from both a Danish research center and a Swedish design company. Within these workshops, with the help of tools taken from CA and realized in form of the boundary object "script analysis", the participants from outside and the project team partners (i.e. anthropologists, conversation analysts, designers, engineers) are able to collaboratively analyze and contribute to the next design iteration of a prototype. Besides summarizing the design implications drawn from the collaborative analysis, there will be given a thorough reflection upon the workshops' progression and overall iterative process, due to i.e. the interaction between workshop participants and the transcription/ "script" material. A "Reflection-on-Interaction Framework" is finally developed and actively used to evaluate up-coming challenges and outcomes when staging the cross-disciplinary workshops.

Besides handing over current procedures from conversation analysis to user-centred designers, who could get first experience with CA 'by doing', this master's thesis opens up a, so far closed, gate and gives a base for discussion about future research cooperation across the two disciplines.
Vejleder: Brendon Clark, Mads Clausen Institute, SDU

Tsvetomira Milkova Ilieva:
"Managing Privacy, Security and Sharing Settings through a Statement based Interface"
With the rapid development of information and communication technologies, the number of devices, which are surrounding a person, is expected to increase. This requires that new solutions for profile management, which will assist the user in configuring these devices, need to be considered. The goal of the project has been to design an application for profile management in a network of devices, which can communicate with each other, through a statements based interface. The application is intended to be primarily used on mobile devices. A new concept - statements is presented in the project. Statements are used for managing settings of devices, including privacy, security and sharing settings, when the user is doing different activities.

The design process of the application has focused on user-centered design and using interaction design and creativity methods. The process has been iterative and it has involved conducting different user sessions for identifying user needs, development of low-fidelity paper-based prototypes and a hi-fidelity electronic prototype, as well as evaluations of the prototypes. Ethical and social issues related to using the designed application are also investigated.

The main result of the project is the development of an interactive hi-fidelity electronic prototype, implemented in Flash, which represents the concept of using statements for managing settings in different situations. This prototype has functionalities, which provide the user with an easy and quick way to configure settings when the user's activity changes. Based on the results of the evaluations, it is concluded that the application is useful and can help the user in managing his/her devices, as well as it provides good user experience and usability.
Vejleder: Nette Schultz, Informatics and Mathematical Modelling, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet

Tony Gjerlufsen, Jesper Wolff Olsen:
"A Harmonization of Physcality and Digitality: Parallelisms at a Material Level"
We, as human beings, possess an amazing ability to process, filter and utilize the immense input of data in all aspects of navigating our physical world. That is, in using, in traveling, in experimenting, in learning, in living, or to put it short: in doing. The intriguing thing about humans doing in an entirely physical context is that we, to some extent, seem to just do. It seems that we go about our daily lives with such a profound confidence in the intrinsic properties of our physical world, that the complexities of doing are subconsciously disregarded in favour of the assumption that one simply can do. Alas, the aforementioned ability to just do for some reason falls short when applying it to most non-trivial, multi functional digital entities surrounding us. What is the striking difference, then, between doing in a non-digital world and doing through, on, at and with these digitally augmented entities? This thesis sets out to explore the nature of the physical and digital worlds, in the attempt to uncover whether a part of the aforementioned inability to just do possibly ensue from fundamental differences of the two worlds, rather than simply from badly designed applications.

To contemplate the two worlds in parallel and to understand and discuss the physical world on an abstract level, the philosophical work of Peter Unger, specifically his Scientiphical Metaphysic, is introduced. This framework is then used to understand the digital world at a similar abstract level. In the wake of that, two main concepts are being coined, namely Physicality and Digitality. Each of which captures the essence of the two worlds, including their individual defining basic qualities. Through a juxtaposition of these two sets of basic qualities, we bring forth a set of challenges that should to be addressed, to allow for the possibility to be able to just do proximal to digitally augmented physical entities. We direct focus onto a discussion on the object oriented programming paradigm and an in-depth analysis of a EU project entitled Palcom, researching into palpable computing, as they both meet some of the challenges found in the intermixture of Physicality and Digitality.

The thesis provides a conceptual framework in which, one is able to contemplate the digital world in direct parallel with the physical world. It further brings forth concrete solutions to meet the challenges found in the cross field of these two worlds. The work of this thesis is meant to enable designers and researchers to better understand the core similarities and differences of the two worlds, and eventually design and implement applications allowing us to just do. Are we able to do that now? No. However, with the insight gained from the analysis of Digitality, Physicality, their intermixture and the work of Palcom, we will have moved a significantly step forward in the process of achieving this.
Vejleder: Preben Holst Mogensen, Datalogisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet

Inge Mølgaard:
"Det Æstetiske Alternativ En undersøgelse af brugerinddragelse i designprocesser for oplevelsesorienterede websteder"
Dette speciale beskæftiger sig med nogle af de nye tendenser inden for Human-Computer interaction (HCI), som interesserer sig for brugerens følelser og oplevelser i interaktionen med itartefakter.

Disse tendenser kaldes den æstetiske vending. Min interesse for denne nye vending bunder i evalueringer, jeg foretog for smykkefirmaet Pilgrim. Disse evalueringer undersøgte målgruppens følelser på deres websted og bekræfter vigtigheden af de nye perspektiver på HCI, da interaktion med webstedet ikke blot var en rationel proces. Udgangspunktet for dette speciale bunder således i en interesse for at undersøge, hvordan man kan inddrage brugere i en designproces, når man ønsker at designe for deres følelser og oplevelser. Den grundlæggende problemformulering i specialet lyder således:

Hvorledes kan man inddrage brugeren, når man ønsker at designe for æstetiske oplevelser på websteder?

Specialet undersøger således, hvordan man kan inddrage brugeren, når man vil designe for æstetiske oplevelser, og hvorvidt sådanne oplevelser kan medvirke til at levendegøre Pilgrims identitet på et websted.

Der er forskellige teoretiske perspektiver i den æstetiske vending, og designprocessen i dette speciale følger det funktionelle og oplevelsesbaserede perspektiv. Teorier i det funktionelle perspektiv bygger videre på brugervenlighedstraditionen, mens det oplevelsesbaserede perspektiv har et helt nyt værdisæt for, hvordan vi skal integrere it-artefakter i vores følte liv. Dette perspektiv bygger grundlæggende på den pragmatiske æstetik. Dette betyder, at æstetiske oplevelser kræver et aktivt individ, der tilegner sig oplevelser med hele det sansende individ. Æstetiske oplevelser foregår i dynamiske processer mellem kognitive og narrative mentale tilstande, da opleveren skaber mening i verden ved at danne meningsfulde historier i oplevelsen.

En narrativ designmetode blev således udgangspunktet for at inddrage brugere aktivt i en designproces. Den opsatte designmetode er inspireret af Participatory design metoder, og er opsat, så den giver relevante data for Pilgrim. Metoden har fokus på at anskueliggøre oplevelser, værdier og forventninger, som er relevante i forhold til at finde og købe smykker. En praktisk anvendelse at designmetoden viste, at det var værdifuldt for historieudviklingen, at inddrage deltagernes egne erfaringer og objekter samt konkrete designobjekter passende til designmetodens formål. Udfaldet af designmetoden er en række historier og tegninger, der giver vigtig viden til at designe for æstetiske oplevelser på Pilgrims websted. Sammen med interaktionsidealerne fra det funktionelle og oplevelsesbaserede perspektiv overføres brugerinddragelsens historier og tegninger til en fungerende prototype for Pilgrim. Denne prototype bliver sammenholdt med Pilgrims nuværende websted og evalueret med seks deltagere fra Pilgrims målgruppe. Evalueringen har til formål at undersøge, hvorvidt den opsatte designmetode giver valid empiri i forhold til Pilgrim og æstetiske oplevelser. Analysen af deltagernes evalueringer viser, at brugernes oplevelser af prototypen i høj grad har æstetiske kvaliteter. Samtidig var disse oplevelser i tråd med Pilgrims identitet, hvilket validerer designmetoden
Vejleder: Olav W. Bertelsen, Datalogi, Aarhus Universitet

Claus Methmann Christensen, Klaus Kjeldsen Rasmussen:
"A location-based service for nomadic home health-care workers"
The master thesis investigates the design and evaluation of GeoHealth, a pervasive location-based service prototype for home healthcare workers. The research involved a specific case, namely the home healthcare service. To gain insight into the domain the research involved ethnographic field studies, questionnaires, and interviews, which focused on the work activities of a group of physical distributed healthcare assistants and nurses. Furthermore, the case study focused on uncovering the coordination and communication related to the work activities, and was mainly conducted with the objective to inform the design for a location-based system prototype supporting collaborative work activities.

Based on our analysis of the domain, we designed a web-based prototype system supporting collaboration and coordination. The design explores a representational approach for visualizing different aspects of collaboration and communication between home healthcare workers, and includes functionalities to support certain tasks related to the daily work. This features an interface with a combined temporal and spatial overview of the geographical distributed work domain, including information about patients and co-workers tailored to geographical locations, and live information updates about current and scheduled activities, functionality for ad-hoc exchange of work tasks, and functionality to adapt emergency calls by directing them to the nearest workers.

The relationship between healthcare workers and patients was build up as information layers, which could be toggled to reduce (and increase) the complexity of the view by means of toggling only the needed information. The prototype design was implemented using Google Maps and cutting-edge Web 2.0 technologies, and included integration of GPS in a standard web browser.

Finally, the functional prototype was evaluated including both laboratory and field evaluations, which involved nine real user test subjects. The purpose of the evaluations was to investigate into the general characteristics of usage of the prototype system, and the potential of the geographical anchored representation of the work activities. During the evaluations it was found that the combination of listing scheduled house calls and linking them to their geographical position provided the users with a new aspect on their work activities. Especially, the visualization of nearest colleague and directing emergency calls to the nearest co-worker showed to benefit the user by means of making them more location aware, and thereby able to know instantly whom to call for assistance, when needed. This feature was also found to be the most significant finding of the GeoHealth prototype. However, when isolating the map-based representation of patients, the users found mapping to the temporal aspect such as house call scheduling hard to interpret; a finding that shows that temporal aspects are difficult to represent on a geographical map. Furthermore, direct manipulation on a map-based interface was found to open new possibilities for interaction such as visually exchanging geographically distributed tasks between co-workers. Finally, the evaluation showed opportunities and limitations in combining active and passive location-awareness; opportunities such as notifying workers with updated information, without interrupting their current work flow, and limitations such as moving needed information out of the screen by centering the dynamic GPS position.
Vejleder: Jesper Kjeldskov, Informatik, Aalborg universitet