The research was a mysterious thing that brightened during the Master's thesis

“The usability and accessibility of eHealth services is an interesting topic,” describes Tuuli Rasimus, a student of Information Networks. She made her Master's thesis in the research group of Senior University Lecturer Sari Kujala in the autumn of 2024. In her thesis, Tuuli created user personas depicting vulnerable groups. “They can be used to make eHealth services available to a larger group of people,” tells Tuuli about the concrete results of her thesis.

Tuuli feels that accessibility is an important topic, which she had already gained experience in her previous job in the private sector as a customer service and consultant. She had been able to familiarize herself with and explore, for example, technical accessibility challenges from the perspective of screen readers' users. Doing the Master's thesis strengthened both Tuuli's interest and competence in terms of accessibility.

”Studying in Information Networks has been nice, because everyone has had such an enthusiastic learning-orientated attitude,” Tuuli describes her studies. Tuuli characterizes her fellow students as friendly, creative and skilled people who are interested in a wide range of topics. In such a group, doing group work, for example, is nice.

Tuuli liked doing the thesis in the research group. She felt it was important to be able to work remotely, but also with others in the same office room. This allowed Tuuli to experience how research is done in practice and to get to know new people. “The research was a mysterious thing that brightened during the Master's thesis”, Tuuli elaborates. Along with other members of the research group, she attended for example a health technology event. Especially in the lunch discussions, Tuuli got to hear more about how the dissertation is done and what it all involves.

Doing the master's thesis taught a lot. “Everything may seem really difficult and confusing at first, but you have to trust that things will work out,” Tuuli encourages to future master's thesis students. “It is a good idea to gradually promote the Master's thesis at a calm pace," she adds. In addition, Tuuli found it important that the supervisor Sari Kujala trusted her. Sari had encouraged Tuuli to start doing interviews right from the start of the thesis. “Sari's encouragement also pushed forward in a good way," Tuuli describes the process afterwards.

The time was suitable for doing the master's thesis, even though Tuuli is still studying a few more courses before graduating as a Master of Science in Technology. Tuuli has now returned to her previous job as a consultant and is interested in working on usability and accessibility in the future as well. Tuuli also thinks that it is possible to return to Aalto one day to do a doctoral thesis.

Text and photos: Saija Simola/Aalto University