Products are used in many different environments that can enhance or hamper the user experience. The impact can be particularly significant for people with reduced capability.

Elements of the social factors include

• Friends and family, who can share experiences and knowledge to help learn product features
• A public audience who can encourage or discourage actions due to peer pressure or humiliation

Elements of the physical factors include

• Temperature, which can affect people’s mood, temperament, sweatiness, and dexterity
• Attention, which can be distracted by environmental factors, resulting in more errors and a difficulty in completing tasks
• Ambient lighting, which affects visual performance and causes problems such as glare
• Background noise and the acoustic environment can make sounds and speech harder to distinguish

An understanding of the different environments within which a product might be used is a critical element in creating realistic scenarios.