Activity theory is a way of describing and characterizing the structure of human - tivity of all kinds. First introduced by Russian psychologists Rubinshtein, Leontiev, and Vigotsky in the early part of the last century, activity theory has more recently gained increasing attention among interaction designers and others in the hum- computer interaction and usability communities (see, for example, Gay and H- brooke, 2004). Interest was given a signi?cant boost when Donald Norman suggested activity-theory and activity-centered design as antidotes to some of the putative ills of “human-centered design” (Norman, 2005). Norman, who has been credited with coining the phrase “user-centered design,” suggested that too much attention focused on human users may be harmful, that to design better tools designers need to focus not so much on users as on the activities in which users are engaged and the tasks they seek to perform within those activities. Although many researchers and practitioners claim to have used or been in?uenced by activity theory in their work (see, for example, Nardi, 1996), it is often dif?cult to trace precisely where or how the results have actually been shaped by activity theory. Inmanycases, evendetailedcasestudiesreportresultsthatseemonlydistantlyrelated, if at all, to the use of activity theory. Contributing to the lack of precise and traceable impact is that activity theory, - spite its name, is not truly a formal and proper theory.

Human-CenteredSoftwareEngineering: BridgingHCI,UsabilityandSoftwareEngineering From its beginning in the 1980’s, the ?eld of human-computer interaction (HCI) has beende?nedasamultidisciplinaryarena. BythisImeanthattherehas beenanexplicit recognition that distinct skills and perspectives are required to make the whole effort of designing usable computer systems work well. Thus people with backgrounds in Computer Science (CS) and Software Engineering (SE) joined with people with ba- grounds in various behavioral science disciplines (e. g. , cognitive and social psych- ogy, anthropology)inaneffortwhereallperspectiveswereseenasessentialtocreating usable systems. But while the ?eld of HCI brings individuals with many background disciplines together to discuss a common goal - the development of useful, usable, satisfying systems - the form of the collaboration remains unclear. Are we striving to coordinate the varied activities in system development, or are we seeking a richer collaborative framework? In coordination, Usability and SE skills can remain quite distinct and while the activities of each group might be critical to the success of a project, we need only insure that critical results are provided at appropriate points in the development cycle. Communication by one group to the other during an activity might be seen as only minimally necessary. In collaboration, there is a sense that each group can learn something about its own methods and processes through a close pa- nership with the other. Communication during the process of gathering information from target users of a system by usability professionals would not be seen as so- thing that gets in the way of the essential work of software engineering professionals.

This book constitutes the refereed conference proceedings of the 8th IFIP WG 13.2 International Conference on Human-Centered Software Engineering, HCSE 2020, which was supposed to be held in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, in November/December 2020, was instead held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 10 full papers and 5 short poster and demo papers presented together with 5 poster and demo papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 33 submissions. The papers focus on the interdependencies between user interface properties and contribute to the development of theories, methods, tools and approaches for dealing with multiple properties that should be taken into account when developing interactive systems. They are organized in the following topical sections: user-centred design approaches; model-based and model-driven approaches; software development strategies; and posters and demos.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th IFIP WG 13.2 International Conference on Human-Centered Software Engineering, HCSE 2014, held in Paderborn, Germany, in September 2014. The 13 full papers and 10 short papers presented together with one keynote were carefully reviewed and selected from 35 submissions. The papers cover various topics such as integration of software engineering and user-centered design; HCI models and model-driven engineering; incorporating guidelines and principles for designing usable products in the development process; usability engineering; methods for user interface design; patterns in HCI and HCSE; software architectures for user interfaces; user interfaces for special environments; representations for design in the development process; working with iterative and agile process models in HCSE; social and organizational aspects in the software development lifecycle; human-centric software development tools; user profiles and mental models; user requirements and design constraints; and user experience and software design.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Human-Centered Software Engineering, HCSE 2012, held in Toulouse, France, in October 2012. The twelve full papers and fourteen short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers cover the following topics: user interface design, examining the relationship between software engineering and human-computer interaction and on how to strengthen user-centered design as an essential part of software engineering process.

This book constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 7th IFIP WG 13.2 International Conference on Human-Centered Software Engineering, HCSE 2018, held in Sophia Antipolis, France, in September 2018. The 11 full papers and 7 short papers presented together with 5 poster and demo papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 36 submissions. The papers focus on the interdependencies between user interface properties and contribute to the development of theories, methods, tools and approaches for dealing with multiple properties that should be taken into account when developing interactive systems. They are organized in the following topical sections: HCI education and training; model-based and model-driven approaches; task modeling and task-based approaches; tools and tool support; and usability evaluation and UI testing.

This book takes a unique HCI approach to the concept of Software Product Line (SPL) and discusses the peculiarities of human-computer interaction not usually addressed in more traditional approaches. SPL is based on industrial practices for defining a range of software products. SPL design identifies commonalities and differences between the various software versions, modelling and managing the software variability. Recent research has focused on reconciling the different viewpoints of SPL and HCI, and in particular emphasizing the specific variability of HCI and the management of complex SPL models that could benefit from HCI in terms of representation, manipulation and visualization. This edited volume includes research that addresses the SPL for HCI and HCI for SPL. In putting together these two research streams, the groundwork is laid for future research into this important area. Both the HCI and the software engineering communities will find this book an invaluable resource.

Everyone expects the products and services they use to be secure, but 'building security in' at the earliest stages of a system's design also means designing for use as well. Software that is unusable to end-users and unwieldy to developers and administrators may be insecure as errors and violations may expose exploitable vulnerabilities. This book shows how practitioners and researchers can build both security and usability into the design of systems. It introduces the IRIS framework and the open source CAIRIS platform that can guide the specification of secure and usable software. It also illustrates how IRIS and CAIRIS can complement techniques from User Experience, Security Engineering and Innovation & Entrepreneurship in ways that allow security to be addressed at different stages of the software lifecycle without disruption. Real-world examples are provided of the techniques and processes illustrated in this book, making this text a resource for practitioners, researchers, educators, and students.