4 - William McQuade

Hoekman makes a variety of points in Chapter 3 regarding users and designs. He discusses how the user is not always correct because sometimes they do not always convey what they truthfully want. Many products will be used by a large variety of different users. Therefore, there are many personas to take into account while doing research on a specific design. Hoekman discusses how many users do not convey what they truthfully want in a correct way. Many users like to stay with a product that they are accustomed to because they are used to this product and it works for them. In cases like this, providing new features alone will not make a new product necessarily better than an existing product that users are accustomed too. Regardless of the new features that a new product may have, a user still may stick with the original product because ultimately both products satisfy the same need; just in different ways. The user thinks to them self, why change to a new product if the current product I use is satisfactory to my needs. Ultimately, providing new features just because a few users request them will not completely differentiate a new product design from the other competitors existing products. Hoekman advocates for the situation centered approach which is a mix between user-centered and activity-centered. Users deal with the circumstances of who, what where, when, and why; while the designer needs to focus on how all of these things can be taken into consideration while designing a product. Project 2 involved redesigning a piece of workout cardio equipment. To follow the situation centered approach for my project 2, I could have focused more on the activity-centered and user-centered research methods together. I could have analyzed what situation this project involved and asked users their opinion on this matter. From there I could have figured out how to take their opinion into consideration and how to make my design implement their needs based on that situation.