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

[Eric Scheid]

On 2/8/05 3:16 PM, "Listera" <listera at rcn.com> wrote:

> I think better examples for your case would be things like Google Maps (that
> allow very creative mash-ups with data from other domains), Amazon.com (that
> has generated many secondary services using its extensive API) and, my
> favorite example, AppleScript (that has allowed literally thousands of
> scriptable software to tie various otherwise unrelated apps together to
> create powerful workflows in many different industries).

Or even the humble carpenter's hammer. Designed for driving nails into wood,
it has been designed with a simplicity that it affords many other uses
(driving in wooden plugs, driving in screws, breaking bricks, cutting wire,
opening bottles of beer).

It's easy to imagine some designer being tasked with "design me a tool for
driving in nails" and coming back with some device that does that, but has
no affordances for anything else.

Driving in a nail is a task, one part of a larger carpentry activity.
Activity centred design would look at the large activity, acknowledging that
one of the things needed would be a tool for driving nails, but also
accepting that there are potentially other tasks for which percussive blunt
force may be called for, and thus a design appropriate to the activity would
include a general purpose hammering tool. A design specific to the task as
performed by a user would be some pneumatic or electric nail driver - great
for driving nails, great for users since they don't need to be a great aim,
nor do they need worry about getting tired ... but lousy for opening bottles
of beer, which is a serious drawback ;-)

e.

oh gawd, now I'm reminded of late night infomercials for kitchen knives. It
chops, it slices, it dices, and you can use it to scoop up the choppings to
move to the pot.