International Journal of Information Technologies and Systems Approach, 8(2), 1-12, July-December 2015 1 Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. ABSTRACT Human – Computer Interaction (HCI) should be a basic part of the formative process of all Computer Science (CS) professionals. Usability and User Experience (UX) were (re)defned by many authors and well recognized standards. UX is usually considered as an extension of usability. To move from usability to UX seems to be a tendency lately. The lack of generally agreed formal defnitions of HCI/usability/UX may have consequences on their development and recognition among CS communities, especially in regions where HCI is poorly developed, as Latin America. Practical activities are fundamental in complementing the theoretical founda- tions of HCI/usability/UX. The practice is usually more appealing and persuasive than the theory. The gap between HCI/usability/UX research and practice may be reduced by applied research, problem – oriented, or at least based on real case studies. Usability and User Experience: What Should We Care About? Cristian Rusu, Pontifcia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile Virginica Rusu, Universidad de Playa Ancha, Valparaíso, Chile Silvana Roncagliolo, Pontifcia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile Carina González, Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, España Keywords: Human – Centered – Design, Human – Computer Interaction, Usability Engineering, Usability, User – Centered Design, User Experience Design, User Experience 1. INTRODUCTION The Joint Task Force on Computing Curricula of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and IEEE Computer Society establishes Human – Computer Interaction (HCI) as part of the Body of Knowledge in their Computer Science (CS) curricula proposal (CS2013, 2013). HCI relevance in CS curricula is formally acknowl- edged by both associations and is included into the set of 18 CS knowledge areas. CS2013 (as well as the previous CS2008 and CC2001 proposals) recommends that any CS curricula should cover at least 8 HCI core hours. CS2013 explicitly includes usability as a compulsory core HCI topic. One of the expected learning outcomes is to “Create and conduct a simple usability test for an existing software application”. Moreover, usability is also rec- ommended as elective topic. User Experience (UX) is not explicitly incorporated as a core HCI topic; however it is implicitly considered in other core and elective topics. It seems that the usability concept is widely accepted not DOI: 10.4018/IJITSA.2015070101