ABSTRACT
Although psychology, particularly as represented by the field of human factors or ergonomics, has had a long tradition of contributing to computer systems design and implementation, it has often neglected vitally important issues such as the underlying values of the people involved and their motivation in the work setting. The author have chosen to use the terms human factors and human actors in the title of the chapter as he believe it highlights a difference in the perception of the person; the former connoting a passive, fragmented, depersonalized, unmotivated individual, the latter connoting an active, controlling one. The focus of the system design or Human-Computer Interaction research group is biased towards the technology; the view of people is often simply as "users" of this piece of technology, and "naive users" at that.
