Evaluation of Push Notifications for Social Media Applications

The growth of social media has impacted on people’s everyday life, precipitating the development of a new set of guidelines for designing applications (apps), creating heightened user engagement without crossing the line to frustration. This study focuses on how push notifications from social media apps should be designed in order to keep the user intrigued and returning to the app, without annoying the user to the point where they turn the push notifications off. The exponential growth in the usage of social media has emphasised the importance of designing apps with a user- centred functionality. The study used a combination of a survey questionnaire and a qualitative perception study, with the results collected as both data and extracts from interviews. This study identified that a high frequency of notifications from social media apps has led to resentment by users against pushes notifications in general. The app-user relationship is cemented from the beginning of the experience and the action the user takes in relation to notifications depends on their perception of the senders’ intentions. Younger users’ actions are also predominately driven by the phenomena Fear of Missing Out

Reclaiming Control over Personal Data with Blockchain Technology: An Exploratory Study

With the digitalization and increasing number of Internet users, more and more personal data breaches occur. Many people are not aware of their personal data rights and have not received any instructions on how to act in situations such as when their personal data is abused. This is something that illustrates the flaws of the Internet. A technology that provides solutions to some of these problems, such as trust and transparency, is the blockchain technology. Hence, the objective of this paper is to investigate knowledge about personal data rights and to explore the design of a prototype of a blockchain application for increased security and transparency. User tests were conducted, highlighting the greatest needs for users to feel secure and in control over their personal data. This knowledge provide the foundation for a prototype based on blockchain technology that gives the users increased security and forces those who store personal data to be more transparent with the usage

Sustainable international experience: A collaborative teaching project

Within engineering education, there is an increasing need for providing our students with international experiences. This is most often done by exchange studies abroad. However, a majority of the students on engineering programs do not engage in any international exchange. This paper presents insights from a collaborative cross-disciplinary international project to give students international experience without having to travel. From both a sustainability perspective and a situation where e.g. a global virus outbreak stop students from travelling, solutions that give engineering students experience of working in an international setting are becoming increasingly important. Initial challenges, for the teachers involved in the project, that were addressed before the project started, included the assessment of students, the use of online collaborative tools, assessment of students and the dependence between the two courses. The learnings from the first and second iteration of the collaborative project were mainly focused around transparency, introduction of students to each other, communication, real-time issues and deadlines. By gradually remove these peripheral challenges for the students, resulting in making the students focus on the actual challenges surrounding the actual collaborative project. Even though this project is ongoing, the initial results clearly show that by integrating courses between different countries and disciplines, it is possible to create an environment that strengthens the students’ ability in teamwork, communication and addresses the cultural and professional aspects of working as an engineer in an international context

The User Experience of Personalized Content

Content in digital services is often filtered for users based on individual preferences with the possible consequence of creating a state referred to as a “filter bubble”. The objective of this paper is to examine which of a user’s inherent needs that are important to satisfy when a user is consuming personalized content in a digital service. The paper uses a survey to measure the need for autonomy, competence and relatedness of the Self- Determination Theory when users are consuming filtered content in digital services. The results show that the investigated services fail to satisfy all needs. A satisfactory user experience should include the opportunity for the user to satisfy the need for autonomy, competence and relatedness. For autonomy, transparency of filtering and choice about filtering should be offered. For competence, it is essential to offer content that the user can learn from, and also provide the right amount of choice throughout the service. The danger of filter bubbles is not personalization, but to remove choice about personalization

The use of Twitter for innovation in business markets

Purpose The purpose of this research is to investigate the use of Twitter in business as a medium for knowledge sharing and to crowdsource information to support innovation and enhance business relationships in the context of business-to-business (B2B) marketing. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a combination of methodologies for gathering data in 52 face-to-face interviews across five countries and the downloaded posts from each of the interviewees' Twitter accounts. The tweets were analysed using structural topic modelling (STM), and then compared to the interview data. This method enabled triangulation between stated use of Twitter and respondent's actual tweets. Findings The research confirmed that individuals used Twitter as a source of information, ideas, promotion and innovation within their industry. Twitter facilitates building relevant business relationships through the exchange of new, expert and high-quality information within like-minded communities in real time, between companies and with their suppliers, customers and also their peers. Research limitations/implications - As this study covered five countries, further comparative research on the use of Twitter in the B2B context is called for. Further investigation of the formalisation of social media strategies and return on investment for social media marketing efforts is also warranted. Practical implications - This research highlights the business relationship building capacity of Twitter as it enables customer and peer conversations that eventually support the development of product and service innovations. Twitter has the capacity for marketers to informand engage customers and peers in their networks on wider topics thereby building the brand of the individual users and their companies simultaneously. Originality/value This study focuses on interactions at the individual level illustrating that Twitter is used for both customer and peer interactions that can lead to the sourcing of ideas, knowledge and ultimately innovation. The study is novel in its methodological approach of combining structured interviews and text mining that found the topics of the interviewees' tweets aligned with their interview responses.Peer reviewe

The use of Twitter for innovation in business markets

Purpose The purpose of this research is to investigate the use of Twitter in business as a medium for knowledge sharing and to crowdsource information to support innovation and enhance business relationships in the context of business-to-business (B2B) marketing. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a combination of methodologies for gathering data in 52 face-to-face interviews across five countries and the downloaded posts from each of the interviewees\u27 Twitter accounts. The tweets were analysed using structural topic modelling (STM), and then compared to the interview data. This method enabled triangulation between stated use of Twitter and respondent\u27s actual tweets. Findings The research confirmed that individuals used Twitter as a source of information, ideas, promotion and innovation within their industry. Twitter facilitates building relevant business relationships through the exchange of new, expert and high-quality information within like-minded communities in real time, between companies and with their suppliers, customers and also their peers. Research limitations/implications As this study covered five countries, further comparative research on the use of Twitter in the B2B context is called for. Further investigation of the formalisation of social media strategies and return on investment for social media marketing efforts is also warranted. Practical implications This research highlights the business relationship building capacity of Twitter as it enables customer and peer conversations that eventually support the development of product and service innovations. Twitter has the capacity for marketers to inform and engage customers and peers in their networks on wider topics thereby building the brand of the individual users and their companies simultaneously. Originality/value This study focuses on interactions at the individual level illustrating that Twitter is used for both customer and peer interactions that can lead to the sourcing of ideas, knowledge and ultimately innovation. The study is novel in its methodological approach of combining structured interviews and text mining that found the topics of the interviewees\u27 tweets aligned with their interview responses

Enhancing Professional Skills Among Engineering Students By Interdisciplinary International Collaboration

Providing necessary knowledge and skills for engineering students to become successful professionals is a tricky task. Besides disciplinary knowledge, e.g., communication skills, ability to work in teams, and international experience are often mentioned as important. Regarding internationalization, most engineering programs in Sweden rely on either student exchange or low-level internationalization-at-home, such as international literature and lecturers. This paper explores sustainable international experiences for students on their home turf provided through an international interdisciplinary collaboration where engineering students in Sweden and marketing students in Australia work together on a project. The setup simulates a consultancy firm with development and marketing offices in different countries that cooperate to launch an application for the Australian market. The paper is based on interviews and surveys with students and teachers participating in this, since 2017, ongoing project. Findings reveal that students encountered several challenges that are hard to simulate in an ordinary university setting, e.g., language barriers, cultural differences, time differences, differences between disciplines, and varying work habits and values. The results also highlight opportunities such as learning from each other’s perspectives and expertise, developing a more professional approach, presenting to people from other industry backgrounds, and gaining a better understanding of different cultures. The results show that the students gain professional experience that is of great value for their future profession. From a teacher’s perspective, the paper discusses important issues when setting up an international inter-disciplinary collaboration, e.g., alignment of exercises, building a common ground, and the need for flexibility

User Experience Design and Digital Nudging in a Decision Making Process

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

Curriculum agility at faculty, department, program, and course level

This short paper describes the first prototyping of a self-evaluation process of Curriculum Agility at a Faculty of Technology in Sweden. The process comprises guided, semi-structured, individual interviews at different organisational levels within the faculty, a joint narrative based on those interviews, prioritizing development strategies per level, and jointly mapping them on importance and implementation time. The self-evaluation is part of and based on the research on the principles of Curriculum Agility. The results show the interplay in timely curriculum change for futureproof engineering education between the teaching staff, the systems and the people who control the systems. The self-evaluation brings together the different perspectives and perceptions within the faculty and gives insight in how those affect the willingness towards and occurrence of curriculum development. This work in progress indicates how doing such a qualitative self-evaluation paves the road for transparent strategic dialogues on a holistic level about what to give attention and organize differently

Internationalization of students’ learning using online technology: Lessons learned

The global nature of business has increased the importance of students’ international experience during their studies at the university. Using interactive technologies the projects investigated ways to increase students’ motivation to take responsibility for the learning process by creating “real” international co-creation experience online. This paper presents learnings from two consecutive international collaborative teaching between Edith Cowan University, Australia, and Umeå University, Sweden, in 2017 and Edith Cowan University and the University of Rijeka, Croatia, in 2018. Feedback from the students showed they enjoyed working across cultures and academic discipline on simulated products and marketing campaigns. Issues raised included: the need to explicitly explain how all parts of project is going to work and how the students execute their role. Incorporation of a formal introduction process for the students in each location so all students have the same knowledge about each other. Furthermore, the provision of real-time opportunities to collaborate in lectures and the setting joint deadlines between the units are of importance. Despite some of the shortcomings of the project, it has provided a firm foundation for the refinement of ongoing collaborative teaching