The joint Student Conference in Interaction Technology and Design and Student Conference in Electronics and Mechatronics is the annual grand finale of the courses Current Topic in Interaction Technology and Design and Student Conference in Electronics and Mechatronics at the Department of Applied Physics and Electronics, Umeå  University. The idea and objective of the two courses are to give the students a forum, where they can actively participate in scientific research and development through their own ideas and interests. The course introduces students to independently finding and researching a topic of interest for them, using a foreign language orally and in writing, writing a scientific article, peer-reviewing and presenting their work at a conference. The conference format was chosen to provide a realistic environment for the presentation of the results. The work has been reviewed both by other participant on the course and members of the department. If the reviews are favorable, the paper is accepted as a full paper at the conference and included in the proceedings.

This study evaluates how Generation Y, also known as millennials, perceive different web design approaches. Two web design approaches were compared, using methods in User Experience design. The first approach is minimalism and the second one is maximalism. Minimalism has been a recurring web design trend ever since the end of the twentieth century. Maximalism is claimed to be the most important web design trend of 2018. The interesting question is if millennials who have grown up with minimalism in web design are interested in a new approach – the maximal approach. This study probe the opinions, thoughts and emotions of millennials after they have browsed two websites, one developed with minimalism and one developed with maximalism. The results show that the participants in this study were more exited by the maximal design. However, combining quantitative and qualitative data, the conclusion is that the different design approaches are more or less suitable to use depending on the message that the website is supposed to convey.

This study evaluates if intentionally added design friction affects users level of satisfaction when using a mobile application. Today most applications are designed to have as little friction as possible. An interesting question is if a more mindful interaction will lead to more satisfied users. In this study two prototypes inspired by the Headspace application where tested. One prototype had added design friction and the other had none. The participants were asked to rate their experience and to choose which prototype they preferred. The result shows that most participants of the test would choose the mobile application with added design friction and that they felt more satisfied when they had a clear understanding of the goal of the task.

In recent years, electronic paper – a display technology known for its low power consumption and paper-like appearance has started emerging in several consumer products, replacing reading and writing on regular paper to some extent. In this paper, the capabilities of electronic ink technology is evaluated in the context of drawing and note taking. Our tests were done by letting test participants use two different tablet devices as replacements for daily activities that usually require pen and paper; the reMarkable, using an electronic ink display, and the Apple iPad, using an LCD screen. The results from the tests showed that for writing, the reMarkable was superior to the iPad, although insufficient when it comes to software and user experience. This shows that the nature of tasks performed throughout a day benefits from a less niched, more do-all device such as an iPad. In summary, the results from this evaluation shows that while the technology has come a long way mimicking the look and feel of paper, integrating electronic paper technology into a tablet in this case demands a little too much of the technology itself. Ultimately, electronic paper still has some way to go before being the go to paper replacement that has been long sought after.

The joint Student Conference in Interaction Technology and Design and Student Conference in Electronics and Mechatronics is the annual grand finale of the courses Current Topic in Interaction Technology and Design and Student Conference in Electronics and Mechatronics at the Department of Applied Physics and Electronics, Umeå University. The idea and objective of the two courses are to give the students a forum where they can actively participate in scientific research and development through their own ideas and interests.  The course introduces students to independently researching an interesting topic, using a foreign language orally and in writing, writing a scientific article, peer-review and presenting their work at a conference. The conference format was chosen to provide a realistic environment for the presentation of the results. The work has been reviewed both by other participant on the course and members of the department. If the reviews are favorable, the paper is accepted as a full paper at the conference and included in the proceedings. Research that has an interesting topic and potential for future publication is presented as work-in-progress at the conference and the abstract is included in the conference proceedings. This year 10 full papers and 2 work-in-progress papers were accepted at the conference and all included in this proceedings as full papers and extended abstracts, respectively.

With the digitalization and increasing number of Internet users,more and more personal data breaches occur. Many people are not awareof their personal data rights and have not received any instructions on howto act in situations such as when their personal data is abused. This issomething that illustrates the flaws of the Internet. A technology thatprovides solutions to some of these problems, such as trust andtransparency, is the blockchain technology. Hence, the objective of thispaper is to investigate knowledge about personal data rights and to explorethe design of a prototype of a blockchain application for increased securityand transparency. User tests were conducted, highlighting the greatestneeds for users to feel secure and in control over their personal data. Thisknowledge provide the foundation for a prototype based on blockchaintechnology that gives the users increased security and forces those whostore personal data to be more transparent with the usage.

When using online nudges to steer people in the right directionwhile they are making a decision, there is usually one preferable outcome.What might happen if the user experience is inadequate, will the nudgesstill work or might they be undermined? In this paper we investigate thecorrelation between user experience and digital nudges in a decisionmaking process. A user A/B test was conducted to investigate theproblem. The test participants visited one of two websites that includedthe same nudges where they were nudged to choose option (a) instead of(b). The only difference in the websites was the quality of the userexperience, one website design had a good user experience while the otherone offered an inadequate user experience. The results showed thateveryone who was assigned the good user experience chose (a), while twoof the inadequate experience participants chose (b). The results indicatethat user experience design can be used for digital nudging.

Utbildningskvalité är en mycket viktig fråga som diskuteras frekvent inom universitetsvärlden. Såväl kontroll som förbättring av utbildningskvalité är i många lägen starkt kopplat till olika former av utvärderingar. Denna artikel syftar till att illustrera och analysera en utvärderingsmodell som har använts på ett civilingenjörsprogram vid Umeå universitet. Målsättningen med utvärderingsmodellen är att skapa mer holistiska utvärderingar med ett starkare fokus på de intressenter som finns för kvalitetsutveckling - studenter och lärare.

Progression bars and spinners have long been the norm when providing feedback during wait times on the web. However, a more recent trend is the use of skeleton screens. This paper aims to evaluate the usefulness of skeleton screens as an alternative to spinners. This is done user testing a fictional news site with two variations, one showing skeleton screens before content is loaded, and another utilizing spinners. Both a questionnaire and measuring timing while finding a specified article when entering a website for the first time was used. The results show that the page using skeleton screens, scored higher on average on both perceived speed and ease of navigation. However, people using the page with spinners were faster at finding the article when entering the site for the first time. The results of this paper cannot show any significant differences in any of the comparisons between the web pages.

Loading screens are still important in 2018, and there is a reason for that: they provide a great way to give feedback to the user in the interface during wait times after a user's action. Previous research shows that it is essential for a well designed interface and it is a well established way to increase and maintain a user's satisfaction. This study specifically examine the looped, passive animation screen with regards to how the animation speed affects the user. Results suggests that with faster animation, perceived wait time gets shorter and the user is more satisfied.