The un-usability of systems, products and services is a tremendous problem for users and consumers all over the world, despite the efforts put in by researchers, usability practitioners and designers. Therefore, usability still needs to be the main focus of our activities. Research and development must focus more on developing processes, methods and tools that significantly turn IT development in another direction. Software development does not stop with delivery, nor do usability issues. Most systems and products are modified and improved in a number of releases over a number of years.
Web sites are continuously updated and modified.
However, most efforts at working with usability matters stop after the initial development process. Other software development models with different approaches are also starting to attract attention from industry, e.g. eXtreme Programming. These models are basically not user-centered and most of them provide limited support for usability activities. Thus, it is also important to find ways of integrating usability aspects into such development models. We also aim to share experiences in applying a UCD perspective on the development of interactive systems.