Evan Samuels - Blog post #4

When reading everyone else's blog 4 posts, they all say that comments from individual users are not important. To an extent, I agree with this because we are learning that designs need to be as simple and easy to use as possible. However, design is as much about usefulness as it is simplicity. Sometimes the most simple design is not the most useful. Granted, like Hoekman said in the book, you must scrutinize each and every feature, stripping everything down to bare bones. This allows you to focus on all of the features that all most important to the task, and then you can start considering what other users find most helpful and useful, while always keeping simplicity in mind. In conclusion, clean your slate and start off with pure simplicity and once you have all of the necessary things out of the way, only then can you consider other helpful features for the rest of the users.

For project 2, the way I would redesign the exercise bike is take away everything and keep the only necessary functions to support the intended task, which is working out for a set period of time at a set resistance. I would take these two functions the main focus and allow the user to change these as needed. All the other workout options, calorie count, and heart rate are unecessary can be combined into one button to clear space. If the user wants to choose a specific workout or check their calories or heart rate (or other options), they can press the respective button that leads them to other options. However, time and resistance are the main focus.