ABSTRACT
The valuable contributions the chapters in this volume make to both our understanding of usability as a concept and to the collection of professional practices that constitute user-centered design share a focus on engaging users as partners in the success of a new product or service. Signaled in the title by the word engagement, the authors here offer a perspective on usability that shifts the focus of being user centered from a front-loaded process of good design practice to an extended relationship, one that should exist as long as people are actively using a product or service. An engagement, after all, is merely the way relationships begin.
