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

[Ted Han]

On 8/3/05, Stewart Dean <stew8dean at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I'm trying to make sense of this myself. I think what the discussion is
> breaking down into is 'top down' and 'bottom up solutions'.
> 
> When 'Z' says stuff 'just happens' then it sounds like the users are finding
> their own way to do what they want because the system designed doesnt quite
> work they way the want to.

That's not what Ziya's talking about though.  Ziya's example is not
that users find the system their using inadequate, and are thus making
due, they're taking a system and using it for something other than the
purpose the system's creator had in mind.  Now that may be due to the
inadequacy of some -other- system, or it could just be that nothing
they have fills a niche that they need filled.  The question Ziya's
after is whether designers should be required to account for (or take
credit for) unintended usages of their creations?  This isn't a matter
of the perspective from which you approach system creation or design,
because this underlies -all- creative activities.  You can't account
for everything, and in different spheres people are held liable, and
in others people aren't.  A lot of time and effort has been spent in
trying to make mining companies liable for the unintended ecological
damage mining has created, where as a bill is currently floating its'
way through congress which would effectively make gun manufacturers
immune to liability for violent crimes committed w/ their weapons.
 
> Top down systems require the user to conform to set ways of doing things -
> much like many microsoft product do unintentionaly.
  
> To use another anology bottom up is like letting a tree grow - whilst top
> down is almost like making it out of steel and concrete.

I'm slightly uncomfortable with your descriptions of top-down and
bottom up, but that may be because i'm missing something.  Top down
systems -may- require a user to comform to set ways of doing things,
but that doesn't really distinguish them from bottom up systems, in
which you can also demand rigid adherence to standards of behavior. 
(also, aren't trees are typically thought of as top down? you start
from one big trunk, and split outwards to the branches)

-T