Week 4 Blog Kym Pagel

Of course the user isn't always correct. Sure users can come up with good ideas, but they don't necessarily know what 's best for the overall design of a product. Hokeman asserts in his book that the design is not entirely user-built, but user-centered. A designer should take note of what users say, especially if more than one asks for certain features. If a great amount of users come up with the same idea for a new feature then chances are that the feature in question is actually important. As Hoekman says "focus only on the features that are in the most demand, the ones that are most important" (72). However, the desire for a feature does not mean that a feature is useful or even needed at all. A major point in Hoekman that I cannot leave out is the need for simplicity in design. So even if these features suggested by the users are viable, that doesn't mean that they should or will be implemented. A "nice to have" is simply that: nice to have, not necessary.

For Project #2 I redesigned one of those exercise bikes, and in retrospect I could and should have removed a lot more of the extraneous options. I left the level select screen in there when it could easily have been integrated into the display and inputted using the number pad. The current setup is necessary it just takes up too much space. I didn't edit the selections for exercise type (warmup, manual, hill, alpine pass, etc). At this point it looks like I could have just omitted those selections entirely. It might be nice to have these options available but they are simply excess and taking up too much space. These options also increase the amount of text that the user has to look at when they first see the equipment. I am not sure if the users actually use the fan very much, but most (if not all) of the exercise rooms I've ever been in I think have large powerful fans at the front of the room. So, if this accurate, then the fan can be removed. This takes out not only a little panel on front display but some hardware as well.