It seems there’s going to be some delay before I proceed to printing my thesis, so I might as well try to get rid of the mistakes. Even though the text is absolutely fascinating, I’m somewhat fed up with reading through it over and over. If somebody decides to have a look, I’d be happy to hear about the oddities encountered, as I might be able to still fix them. (I just noticed that there is something weird going on with the page numbering, so that does not need to be reported.)

It sure was interesting to find out that I have a habit of writing the word were as where. What is more, I seem to love the phrase what is more. When it comes to phrases to avoid, that is another one I have been cleaning out.

The PDF is created using the most compact settings that Pages provides but the document weighs 3,2 megs nevertheless.

Toward strategic usability – user knowledge as a basis for new service development [PDF] [Edit: the link now points to a corrected version]

Said about the thesis

Pietilä’s overview on the concepts of user-centered design is broad for master’s thesis. It clearly indicates Pietilä’s broad knowledge on the topic. This is also evident when considering the breadth of the source material: the thesis has over hundred references which is an amount that is often expected from upper level theses – especially licentiate theses.

Professor Marko Nieminen, supervisor

 The thesis is also a very thorough examination of the topic. There are a noteworthy number of references used in the thesis. The thesis includes literatures on usability, user/human centered design, user experience, innovation and so on. Also the empirical part is rather strong: 13 interviews and a case study involving design work in practice have been carried out. Clearly, a lot of effort has been put into the thesis.

The language of the thesis is understandable and pleasurable to read, even though it has been written in English. The thesis shows that the researcher is well familiar with the topic. The way topics are addressed in very clear and thorough.

Overall rating: 4
Interestedness of the topic: 5
Quality of the work: 5

Final standing: ”top 5”

Anonymous SIGCHI Finland thesis competition judge.