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

[Eric Reiss]

I’ve got to side with Ziya here, although Anne and others have made
some excellent points.

I feel designers need to focus on the primary task and perhaps a few
secondary ones, but not allow themselves to get sidetracked.

“Where do you stop?” When an unintended use becomes mainstream
behavior. Here are a few examples:

For years, Cambell’s Soups marketed condensed soups (just add a can
of water to achieve the right consistency). When the company
discovered that people were drinking their beef broth and chicken
boullion undiluted, on-the-rocks, with a dash of Worchestershire
sauce, they saw this as a marketing opportunity. And when “designing”
new soups, Cambell’s started looking for more recipes (including
ready-to-eat varieties) that lent themselves to this behavior. 

In another soup story, it turns out that many people prefer soup in
cans rather than in plastic pouches or as powders because they like
to use the cans for other projects – such as cleaning paint brushes.
Enough consumers did this to affect the packaging decisions of the
soup manufacturer (I don’t remember which – I think it was Heinz).

Regarding using the phone book as toilet paper, back during the late
1800s-early 1900s, a lot of Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward
catalogs were recycled in just this way. An archivist at RR Donnelly
once told me that because the practice was so widespread, this
actually did influence the choice of paper quality.

Best,
Eric

e-reiss & associates
copenhagen, denmark
www.e-reiss.com