(Making up week 4 blog)
While it is easy to get in the mindset of "the user is always right", this can become very dangerous and hurtful if the designer(s) take this literally. The user's wants and needs should always be kept in mind while designing, but at a certain point during a design there should be a goal to design for the general situation or population, rather than one specific user. What one user uniquely wants will almost never completely line up with what another completely different user might want. Designers should always be noting when a certain amount of users are asking for the same feature over and over, but it should get to a point where the general majority of users want it in order to not upset too many users. Hoekman pushes the idea that a specific user base shouldn't be the focus of a design, but rather to design for a general situation.
Looking back on project 2, Hoekman makes very valid points for advocating situational design. This approach doesn't focus as much on the actual user and their needs but rather looks at the whole situation as a whole and designs from that perspective. Thinking about the machines we dealt with in project 2, I now notice that even more simplicity might have been ideal because nobody wants to be hassled by pushing too many buttons or having to set up too many programs, settings, etc. when they are using these workout machines.
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