Editorial: “Usability”

Abstract

This editorial provides a brief introduction and overview of the following 4 chapters dedicated to the design and evaluation of systems for affective interaction. In such systems affect must be a consideration from the start rather than an afterthought or they are likely to fail due to mistakes in the design. Hence one of the purposes of this part of the handbook is to accommodate affective interaction into a user-centred design loop, thereby increasing the chances of arriving at successful designs. Each chapter corresponds to a step in a generic UCD process and discusses the theoretical and practical underpinnings of activities typically found in the step, lists challenges related to bringing affective interaction into the loop, suggests methods that have proven to be useful in each step, and where appropriate gives examples of systems for affective interaction that have been designed.