4- Rachael Smith

After reading chapter three my thoughts about user-centered design (UCD) are about the same. Being a web designer I have worked a lot with companies about what the marketing team has come up with in terms of research they have done of people interacting with the websites and what they think should be in it and what they don't like. I have found that some users aren't always right and that you can't make everyone happy. There isn't a perfect way to do anything and you will always make a product that will benefit certain groups more than others. Although I have never used persona Hoekman focuses a lot on them seeing as they are a major part of UCD. Persona are a profile of a person to try to focus on users rather than what you would want. They can be a huge asset but they can also leave people out, "... designing with a narrow set of persona descriptions in mind could actually prevent you from achieving the results you're after by alienating audiences not part of the persona pool." (41) By making specific persona you can leave out a whole group of users and your design might not be ideal for those users. Although persona can be a useful tool groups of people are always left out. However, you can't please everyone. Even if you made a persona description for every possible user you still wouldn't be able to make a product that everyone is happy with. There will always be someone it benefits more than others. So by leaving out an audience isn't much of a disadvantage since they would most likely not be the target market, wouldn't be perfectly happy with the product, and could potentially spread your idea too thin by trying to please everyone. I always think of it as a restaurant. Each restaurant specializes in one maybe two types of food. Not everyone will like that type of food so they market to those who will benefit most from their restaurant. That is what designers do from their persona, they think of a target market and someone that would benefit from their product and build it based off that. Just because some audiences would be left out doesn't necessary make it a bad idea process.

Hoekman also discuses the situation-centric approach. This puts a user in a specific situation and designs for that situation. He uses the iPod as an example of how the situation-centric appraoch can be a bad approach, "The iPod is not a success because it does a better job of supporting the activity of listening to music on the go..." (49) When Apple was designing this product they made it "feature-light" to make it easier for users to use the product while exercising. They are able to quickly find what they want and use it without having to spend too much time playing with different preferences and screens. This made the iPod great for working out but was light on features for people that wanted to use it for more than just listening to music or wanted it more personalized. In my opinion there is a reason for target markets. When making a product you have a target market for a reason and that is what these companies are doing. There will always be a preferred method for each designer but they each have similar issues and they each have a target market and will leave certain audiences out. That is how design works and will always work. You can't make everyone happy.