ECENT developments in Information Technology (IT) create new opportunities for creating new user-system interaction techniques. As a result, nowadays we are witnessing a remarkable shift in research and practice of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).
RTraditionally, the domain of HCI has dealt with optimizing user interfaces and developing new interaction styles. Historically, the humans were first placed as trained operators of computer systems dedicated to serving narrowly-defined domains like accounting, manufacturing or process control. With the introduction of Personal Computers (PCs) in the 1980s, the human has become not only a software user, but also an important stakeholder in IT projects. This shift has led to developing User-Centered Design (UCD) approach, very popular in contemporary IT projects. Most recently, availability of wireless networks and handheld devices (especially smartphones) caused that mobile applications and on-line services have become a natural part of everyday life. Ultimately, in IT projects today the human is not only a target user, but also a consumer who decides for instance which payment plan to choose or when to terminate the subscription (often caused by switching to more attractive offer from another vendor).From a technical viewpoint, developing and launching a mobile app or website is relatively easy, but the competition is usually strong and users have a wide choice of similar solutions on-line. In such conditions the real problem is how to attract attention of potential customers and how to gain their loyalty. These are the central questions of on-line relationship marketing and on-line branding -areas not present in IT development until very recently.As a result, currently e-customers often treat IT systems (especially mobile applications and on-line services) as service solutions, which help to solve practical problems (like shopping, reservations, navigation etc.) or to improve individual lifestyle (for instance in areas related to fitness, wellbeing, ecology, safety, health, child care etc.). Ecustomers remain loyal to specific on-line services as long they satisfy their expectations, resulting from everyday context of use (related to specific problem to be solvedwhat, when and where) as well as from their current lifestyle, or even fashion. E-customers' loyalty to a specific service or app no longer results merely from adequate functionality, decent usability and aesthetic look of an app [11]; now it primarily results from cumulated, constantly positive User Experience (Customer Experience), making a given app or service someone's preferred choice.Nowadays user interface still remains an essential part of an IT product, but now it is less a technical component, instead more addressing emotional, behavioral, economical, or lifestyle-related needs. However, the contents of recent IT projects has also changed a lot: now the focus is no longer a computer system, but a specific service aimed to generate revenues. In addition to the technical part (now often outsourced to...
