Monday, February 17, 2014

4- Emily Gries


In a lot of cases regarding technology, it is not about the user being right or wrong. It is all about the way their mind works and how easy the application or technology is. Due to the fact that a lot of users have all sorts of different issues with applications and technology, it is important to see the trends of the big usability issues that a majority of people have. This does not make the user or the creator right or wrong, it just means they have looked at different aspects and decided to create it based on a certain way. I think that Hoekman’s larger focus with the idea of  “user-centered” is to decrease this gap of user and developers. An idea that goes off of this is personas. Sometimes the personas can get specific to one type of user, therefore catering to those types of users and not the rest, who may have different issues with using the technology. The more input and personas used to design, the more people will be satisfied and able to understand the application. This is what “user-centered” is all about; attempting to catering to as many usability flaws as possible in order to create the most sufficient product.

                An aspect of situation-centered design that project two was focused on is self-design. In project two, we focused on the usability of gym equipment. What we could have done, and partly did do, is focus on different types of users and what would be easier for other people. That is why we tested other people besides ourselves; because we know what types of issues that we have with using those machines and not what other types of people use. When making something for one’s self, It’s easy to design things solely for them and not taking into consideration what usability issues other types of people would have. We probably should have tested more people (of all types) and came up with different personas.

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