Throughout the book your awareness of human–computer interaction (HCI) and
its importance to your task as a systems analyst has grown. Your attentiveness to
the surrounding issues of HCI and its existence in organizational settings should
have been heightened. While awareness is important, by now you recognize that
you need to master the concepts surrounding HCI as well as become proficient at
assessing human information requirements and incorporating your findings into
your designs. Furthermore, the European Union (EU) and the United States have
come forth with specific guidelines for usability. These guidelines mandate making
Web sites and electronic services accessible to the disabled.
This chapter fills in some of the details about HCI and working with users. It
also gives you some experience in applying HCI concepts that you have been
learning to help in your design of human–computer interfaces; feedback, ecommerce
Web sites, and Web queries.