The idea for this workshop originated when I came across and read Martin Zelkowitz's book on Requirements for Software Engineering Environments (the proceedings of a small workshop held at the University of Maryland in 1986). Although stimulated by the book I was also disappointed in that it didn't adequately address two important questions - "Whose requirements are these?" and "Will the environment which meets all these requirements be usable by software engineers?". And thus was the decision made to organise this workshop which would explicitly address these two questions. As time went by setting things up, it became clear that our workshop would happen more than five years after the Maryland workshop and thus, at the same time as addressing the two questions above, this workshop would attempt to update the Zelkowitz approach. Hence the workshop acquired two halves, one dominated by discussion of what we already know about usability problems in software engineering and the other by discussion of existing solutions (technical and otherwise) to these problems. This scheme also provided a good format for bringing together those in the HeI community concerned with the human factors of software engineering and those building tools to solve acknowledged, but rarely understood problems.

If you have picked up this book and are browsing the Preface, you may well be asking yourself"What makes this book different from the large number I can find on amazon. com?". Well, the answer is a blend of the academic and the practical, and views of the subject you won't get from anybody else: how psychology and linguistics influence the field of requirements engineering (RE). The title might seem to be a bit of a conundrum; after all, surely requirements come from people so all requirements should be user-centred. Sadly, that is not always so; many system disasters have been caused simply because requirements engineering was not user-centred or, worse still, was not practised at all. So this book is about putting the people back into com puting, although not simply from the HCI (human-computer interaction) sense; instead, the focus is on how to understand what people want and then build appropriate computer systems.

This book presents the state of the art of artificial intelligence techniques applied to structural engineering. The 28 revised full papers by leading scientists were solicited for presentation at a meeting held in Ascona, Switzerland, in July 1998. The recent advances in information technology, in particular decreasing hardware cost, Internet communication, faster computation, increased bandwidth, etc., allow for the application of new AI techniques to structural engineering. The papers presented deal with new aspects of information technology support for the design, analysis, monitoring, control and diagnosis of various structural engineering systems.

Process-Centered Software Engineering Environments (PSEEs) represent a new generation of software engineering environments in which the processes used to produce and maintain software products are explicitly modeled in the environment. PSEEs hold the exciting promise of enabling a significant increase in both software productivity and quality. The book presents a comprehensive picture of this emerging technology while highlighting the key concepts and issues. The first chapter introduces some of the basic concepts and developments behind PSEEs and discusses the unifying role it plays in combining project management, software engineering, and process engineering. The second chapter reviews related process modeling and representation concepts, terminology, and issues. Chapter 3 analyzes the features of some example PSEEs and Chapter 4 takes an inside look at the implementation of these features by describing specific design choices made by researchers. The last chapter discusses the evolution of PSEEs to accommodate practical issues in actual work settings and to play a more significant role in the software life cycle. The text is a collection of influential papers that will bring the newcomer quickly up to speed on this fast-moving field. For the researcher, the issues described in the text present a challenge to be conquered and directions to pursue. For the practitioner, they represent benefits that may be gained in the application of PSEEs in the work environment.

A new product can be easy or difficult to use, it can be efficient or cumbersome, engaging or dispiriting, it can support the way we work and think - or not. What options are available for systematically addressing such parameters and provide users with an appropriate functionality, usability and experience? In the last decades, several fields have evolved that encompass a user-centred approach to create better products for the people who use them. This book provides a comprehensible introduction to the subject. It is aimed first and foremost at people involved in software and product development – product managers, project managers, consultants and analysts, who face the major challenge of developing highly useful and usable products. Topics include: The most important user-centred techniques and their alignment in the development process Planning examples of user-centred activities for projects User-oriented approaches for organisations Real-life case studies Checklists, tips and a lot of background information provide help for practitioners