4 - Ally Brinzea

The point that Hoekman is trying to make in chapter 3 is that users are not always truthful about what they want in a product, and they may not know what they want. There was a part in the reading that talked about how people often said if there was a healthier version of their favorite fastfood burger then they would buy that instead. However, when this burger was invented, everyone stuck to the original burger even though they said they'd make the switch. Sometimes, users have ideas about what they think would be better, but when the idea is made into a reality they may find they don't feel the same way about it anymore.  

It's a tricky situation: what users want is important, but that can't be the only factor when deciding what all a device should do. Designers cannot add everything that is suggested to them. It may make the few who requested the addition happy, but the overall users may be unhappy because it makes the device more complicated. Too many new things pulls away from the devices original intention.

In this type of economy, there is a larger user-centered focus than there should be. Every company is determined to have the device that can "do it all" so that they can please every single person. This isn't how it should be, though. Companies need to focus on the primary function of a device and stick with it. It may not make everyone happy, but it will make their target-group happy.

By a "situation-centric approach to research," Hoekman means that we need to look beyond every want of the user and figure out how plausible these wants are for a device. This would be useful for Project 2 because it would help in redesigning exercise equipment. Nowadays, exercise equipment can be too technological, and there can be so many functions that the users will have no idea how to operate them. looking back on it, I may have looked at a treadmill and thought about what the majority of users would use it for. I could find out that they just want to mess with the speed and incline, keep those functions and take out all of the rest. That would clear up the clutter on the screen and make it easier for users to use.