Human factors research in the area of interactive products and services has produced findings related directly to the ‘average’ user. It has become apparent that there are two fundamental weaknesses in this approach. The first of these is that an emphasis on the ‘average’ user tends to limit awareness of the broad variation inherent in the wider population from which that average was drawn. A significant number of people are, by definition, ‘below average’ and will thus experience difficulties. The second is that historically, human factors research was oriented toward the workplace, as this was where most potentially problematic interfaces resided. However, in the current ‘information age’, this is no longer the case and such interfaces are likely to be encountered in many more and more diverse situations. Partly because of this historical bias and partly because much of the aforementioned research was carried out in universities with ready supplies of undergraduate volunteers, there has been a tendency for the subject samples used to be relatively well-educated, motivated, articulate and young (making the label ‘average’ even less accurate). Given recent demographic trends, the position of these criteria for establishing the ‘average’ user has become increasingly untenable. Therefore the referent of ‘average user’ must be reconsidered as must the importance of the diversity around the average, if interfaces are to be more usable by more people.
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