Designing to seduce the user

Traditionally, human factors specialists have had a rather severe attitude toward human performance with computers: their goal was maximum throughput, often measured in transactions per minute. This attitude was justified when computers were mainly work-related; in some cases it still proves wise. For example, a usability improvement that shaves one second off the time it takes a directory-assistance operator to search a database for a telephone number saves several million dollars per year in the US alone. This performance-obsessed approach to usability led many early user interface experts to condemn the popular term “user friendly” with the argument that users didn´t need “friendly” computers, they needed efficient designs that let them complete their tasks faster