You don‎'‎t need to be convinced‎.‎ You know that usability is key to the success of any interactive system‎-from commercial software to b2b web sites to handheld devices‎.‎ But you need skills to make usability part of your product development equation‎.‎ How will you assess your users‎'‎ needs and preferences‎?‎ How will you design effective solutions that are grounded in users‎'‎ current practices‎?‎ How will you evaluate and refine these designs to ensure a quality product‎?‎ ‎"‎Usability engineering‎:‎ scenario‎-based development of human‎-computer interaction‎"‎ is a radical departure from traditional books that emphasize theory and address experts‎.‎ This book focuses on the realities of product development‎,‎ showing how user interaction scenarios can make usability practices an integral part of interactive system development‎.‎ As you‎'‎ll learn‎,‎ usability engineering is not the application of inflexible rules‎;‎ it‎'‎s a process of analysis‎,‎ prototyping‎,‎ and problem solving in which you evaluate tradeoffs‎,‎ make reasoned decisions‎,‎ and maximize the overall value of your product‎.‎ It is written by prominent hci educators who understand how to teach usability practices to students and professional developers‎.‎ It includes key features such as‎:‎ interleaving hci theory and concepts with a running case study demonstrating their application‎;‎ gradually elaborating the case study to introduce increasingly sophisticated usability engineering techniques‎;‎ analyzing usability issues in realistic scenarios that describe existing or envisioned systems from the perspective of one or more users‎;‎ emphasizing the real world of usability engineering‎-a world in which tradeoffs must be weighed and difficult decisions made to achieve desired results‎;‎ and‎,‎ including a companion web site which provides additional case studies in a multimedia format‎,‎ along with a java application for creating and editing scenarios‎.‎ This site also provides instructors with sample syllabi‎,‎ lecture slides and notes‎,‎ in‎-class exercises‎,‎ solutions to textbook exercises‎,‎ additional project ideas‎,‎ and links to other hci resources‎.‎