Emotions in human-computer interaction: the role of nonverbal behavior in interactive systems

Until recently, the area of human-computer interaction was based on a traditional, cognitive approach, which separated the study of usability from that of emotions. The recent research has shown that emotions play an important role in our life, which led to focusing on the need of studying the emotions in the domain of interactive design. This paper underlines the role of emotions as part of the interactive human-computer process, reinstating the impor-tance of nonverbal communication in this domain. The main issues of this paper are con-cerned with aspects such as: emotional design approach, the importance of nonverbal as an instrument of usability evaluation and the role of emotions in human-computer interaction