Flexit promote knowledge transfer between industry and academia, where the research question and project is initiated by and developed in cooperation with a host company. The research project as presented in this report is called: "To understand future users: Qualities in consumer and professional context." The researcher, Sara Ljungblad, is a PhD in the area of human-computer interaction (HCI), that concerns understanding aspects of design and the experience of digital services and products. The host company is Lots Design, a strategic design firm that supports companies with product innovation and development.

Purpose of the project and any changes in the purpose during the project period
The aim of the project was to understand experiential qualities of design solutions, and how the design process can affect the experience of artifacts, products or services. Quality here refers here to something that characterizes and describes the experience of an artifact, such as the way in which an artifact is meaningful and useful for a person, or how it creates an undesirable experience. The project explored qualities as a way to describe the use and enjoyment of artifacts, products or services. The project should examine qualities both from a consumer perspective and from a professional perspective, which has been done. One of the project's purpose was to give LOTS Design support to justify design as part of the strategy of their clients, and to create innovation and application development support, which the researcher has focused on both practically and theoretically. As a starting point, the company was interested in a focus on professional identity, but this was changed in order to reduce the scope of the research project. Moreover, the researcher made an effort to conduct studies on LOTS clients as planned, but this created an unsecure relationship with the client, so this was changed. An additional challenge was that the company had limited resources to cooperate in research in a more active manner. This led to that the researcher created new methodological conditions by applying for and getting external funding to the designers at LOTS and for other stakeholders to facilitate their participation in the research project.

The three most important results from the project and an account of these results
One commercial outcome of the project is an application development support for interaction designers. It is a beta service that communicates undesired and desired qualities that people may experience when they use digital solutions. The service is available on www.usepack.com and is trademark protected. The beta service can be used by professional designers as a tool for understanding undesired and desired qualities when consumers look at online video content such as news videos. The researcher received funding from Post och Telestyrelsen (PTS), which allowed the designers at LOTS Design, interaction designers at Schimpanz, media producers at SVT Play, as well as employees at Grunden Media, to cooperate in a design project concerning one specific approach to answer the research question. During the project, the researcher interviewed interaction designers on how they ensure that their solutions do not give rise to undesirable qualities or excluded people. Since 2015, a new anti-discrimination law has been established in Sweden, and this increases the demand on the designers' ability to understand that their solution is including.

One important result is that practitioners have articulated research - concerning their perspectives on good design practice and problematize design research within the field of human-computer interaction research. The authors (the researcher, and two experienced industrial designers (one also a PhD student in Human-computer interaction)) argue that some design-oriented activities in the human-computer interaction research leads to a fixation on IT solutions, which may limit the ability to achieve long-term sustainable design solutions. The article is based on observation and practical experience of design work, and group discussions with practicing designers. The result has been published as open access in the Swedish Design Research Journal, and has also been presented at a workshop at an international workshop in Nottingham. The workshop was organized among others by the researcher in the network (HCI-UX) that concerns to understand the boundary between industry and research, initiated by researchers in human-computer interaction research.
 
One of the researcher's goals was to strengthen the designers in their daily work. An important outcome is therefore an ongoing development of a design theory of qualities, which aims to explain the relationship between social, practical and aesthetic qualities. The theory describe how qualities can be understood to primarily concern practical, aesthetic and social needs. The empirical data that is the basis for the theory is based on interviews with people who have impaired ability of the arms and hands and need eating aids or human assistance at mealtimes. The work on the theory and the link to robotics research now continues as the researchers is starting a robotic group at the University of Gothenburg. This will work with inclusive design methodology services concerning robotic services, where especially aesthetic and social qualities will be explored.

New research issues that have been generated through the project
The project has led to several new questions about how HCI research can contribute to a design practice that actively work on taking an inclusive perspective in the digitized society. The researcher has recently initiated a related research collaboration with design practitioners, and researchers, with a first workshop was held in London in 2015 at the Include conference. and two similar workshops have been accepted at PDC (Participatory Design Conference) in Aarhus, as well as at NordiCHI in Gothenburg in 2016. Each workshop is questioning concepts for example to describe the user in the design process, and to make problematic structures and stereotypes visible to discuss how they may influence the design process.

One of the researchers' goal was to strengthen the designers in their daily work, as well as give them a voice in research to describe their expertise. This has led to new questions about the design-oriented HCI research value and function in society, and its relation to the knowledge that practitioners have. A related new research question that is currently processed in an article with another researcher, concerns how specific forms of artistic skill could be an analogy to explain a good design process with examples from practitioners. The researcher intends to continue developing the theory of design expertise and will continue this work in the area of robot research and inclusive design and together with design practitioners.

International connections of the project
The project has been presented and discussed at international conferences and particularly rooted international network HCI-UX, which addresses the gap between academia and industry in human-computer interaction research and user-experience and interaction design as design practice. The researcher has the Network organized an international workshop in Nottingham in 2015, where both researchers and practitioners from Europe and the United States participated.

Research communication measures outside the academic community
The researcher interviewed about their work in including Swedish Design Research Journal, and lectured about the project for students and researchers in several different contexts, such as HDK, Linköping University, Halmstad, Gothenburg University, in research institutes as well as the company's clients. The researcher has various ways involved in the collaboration-focused research activities, including through research lunches at the company, and arranging interdisciplinary research seminars for design-oriented researchers in Gothenburg. The researcher has also participated in SVT UR programs on TV and made ??several blog posts about ongoing research activities at the Lots website. Lots Design got a red dot award for one of the design projects that the researcher conducted international user studies in, which has been presented in several communication channels.

How the project has helped to increase collaboration between a higher education institution (HEI) and a non-academic organisation
The project has in many ways contributed to increased collaboration between between several universities, companies and organizations. The researcher has involved several companies in a practical design projects to make them contribute with their expertise in the research project. The researcher also conducted interdisciplinary seminars for design-oriented research during the project in Gothenburg. The researcher is currently chair of the track industry experience at an upcoming conference (NordiCHI 2016), and works closely with designers and other practitioners in the industry. The researcher leads a seminar serie in interaction design at Gothenburg University, where researchers and industry meet.

The two most important publications from the project and an account of these publications
The project's two main publications are "Beyond ICT: How Industrial Design Could Contribute to HCI research" and "Open Bike: The design craft of futures bike sharing". Both articles problematize how the knowledge of design practitioners and tools are formulated in research. The first discusses good design practice and discuss the differences between design-oriented research and professional industrial design, and is a direct result of the collaboration. The second article is a design case, showing how designers work and reflects on his practice with different kinds of materialization affecting service design. The article describes the design process and to question how research articulates design activities. The articles have been published in open access, which has been secured by the researcher have sent their articles to conferences and journals that provide open access.

Publications

S. Ljungblad (2016) Design challenges and opportunities for acceptable robotic meal assistance (in ACM peer-review).

S Ljungblad (2013) OPENbike: The design craft of future bikesharing
In Proceedings of EAD Crafting the Future Conference, April 17 -19 Gothenburg, Sweden

S. Ljungblad, J.Kotrbova, M. Jacobsson, H. Cramer, and K. Niechwiadowicz (2012) Hospital robot at work: something alien or an intelligent colleague?. In Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (pp. 177-186). ACM.

S. Ljungblad, K. Klockars, O, Torgersson, E. Ericsson, V. Hjort af Ornäs, I. Stewart Claesson, and M, Keitch, (2016) The Cloth Line Approach to Notions in PDC. To appear in proceedings of PDC 2016. (accepted workshop)

S. Ljungblad, O, Torgersson, V. Hjort af Ornäs, , E. Ericsson, I. Stewart Claesson, K. Klockars., and  M. Keitch  (2016) The Cloth Line Approach to Notions that concerns the H in HCI. To appear in proceedings of NordiChi’16. (accepted workshop)

A. Thies, S. Ljungblad and I. Stewart Claesson. (2015) Beyond ICT: How industrial design could contribute to HCI research. In Swedish Design Research Journal.