The use of scenarios in human-computer interaction research

A scenario is an idealised but detailed description of a specific instance of human-computer interaction (HCI). A set of scenarios can be used as a “filter bank” to weed out theories whose scope is too narrow for them to apply to many real HCI situations. By helping redress the balance between generality and accuracy in theories derived from cognitive psychology, this use of scenarios (1) allows the researcher to build on empirical findings...