[Sigia-l] Human-Centered Design 99% bad

[Stewart Dean]

>From: Ted Han <notheory at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: Ted Han <notheory at gmail.com>
>To: Stewart Dean <stew8dean at hotmail.com>
>CC: alexander.johannesen at gmail.com, boniface_lau at compuserve.com, 
>sigia-l at asis.org
>Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Human-Centered Design 99% bad
>Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2005 11:39:27 -0400
>
>On 8/1/05, Stewart Dean <stew8dean at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Secondly the reson to focus on activity is to average out user behavour 
>to
> > avoid over specialisation. You can find out a lot about usage from 10 
>people
> > but for hard core streamlined functional support I feel requires many 
>more
> > users using it in situ - that is refinement through use. This goes 
>beyond
> > the individual needs but is how people use something.
>
>But... but, this isn't actually... a change, is it?  What you've just
>described is understanding what conclusions can be drawn from
>behavio(u)ral data.  Is this a problem with "human centered design"?
>And if it is, does fixing this problem (whether it's learning
>statistics, or a "focus on activity") really constitute a change
>substantial enough to qualify for new terminology?

My view?  I don't really care for any new terminology - there's enough in 
this world already. It's all just user experience work really - I don't even 
use human centered design as all design involves humans at some point. But 
that's a personal point of view.

I think we're looking at slightly altered perspective, not a radical change. 
In short it's just highlighting generic use over persona. People with 
radically different personas will often carry out a task in a remarkably 
similair way.   In short it's about abstracting out activity.  I also add 
that this is most applicable to 'functional sites' - for information and 
experiential sites activity is less important and culture has a bigger 
effect.

Stewart Dean
User Experience Slave