Diego

Moreno Ferguson
EGR7020 Systems Engineering and Analysis
Assignment 3
March 8, 2016

Analysis of human-centered and activity-center design

Two important design approaches can be credited for how technology addresses the needs of a
customers. Human-centered design (HCD) is an approach that, as its name suggests, puts the human
interaction with the product as the main focus of the design. Human-centered designers have the
objectives of making a product easy to use, easy to learn, and to give products the ability to adapt to the
user. Activity-centered design (ACD) focuses on the usefulness of the product and not on its usability.
The main objective of the activity-centered design is for the product to perform its intended task with
precision and accuracy, and as a tradeoff, ACD products can be more difficult to use and may require the
user to be proficient in the subject matter on which the product serves a purpose. Of course, there are
clear advantages and disadvantages to HCD and ACD which may apply specifically to certain kinds of
products, but a company usually focuses on one design approach which can potentially become the
culture of the company or even its competitive advantage.
Products that fail to follow one of the mentioned design approaches often fail to satisfy its customer
needs. Most people can make reference of a product they dislike because it does not perform well the
tasks it advertises, or it is difficult to use, or it lacks an intuitive sequence of commands; which can be
frustrating for any user. I can personally relate to the frustration of using a product with design issues,
which I believe is not successful at performing the tasks it advertises. The Infiniti InTouch Infotainment
System with which Infiniti Q50 vehicles are equipped is a product that in my opinion should be fast, easy
to use, intuitive and reliable. The InTouch system provides the driver with voice-activated services like
email reading, calendar, weather, Google search, among others; for which an internet connection has to
be provided by means of connecting a smartphone with a data plan to the system. Even though the
system can connect to smart phones wirelessly for phone calls, it requires a cable connection to use the
InTouch services, which introduces inconvenience to the user. We ignore the cable issue, and we
proceed to activate commands by voice and realize that there is a lack of intuition in the sequence in
which commands have to be called or activated. The user has to memorize the commands or read
through a list in the screen in order to be able to activate a specific command, since the system would
not understand variations of the exact phrases. Once we find the right commands to use, we start using
 Moreno Ferguson 2

the services and realize that Infiniti InTouch is an extremely slow interface, and having to wait for long
periods of time in silence while the system processes a request is a big drawback. As if the
aforementioned issues were not sufficient, the connectivity of the smart phone to the system can be
inconsistent and sometimes it can take 2 to 4 connection attempts before the system connects to the
internet, making the system unreliable. To put things in perspective, I am a proficient computer user and
consider my ability to effectively use electronics above average, and the Infiniti InTouch system is not
one I am glad to use. My needs as a customer, as stated previously, include a fast, easy to use, intuitive
and reliable system, and I dont feel my needs were satisfied. If I had the opportunity to provide
feedback about the product development process, I would establish the following design requirements:
- Ability to connect wirelessly to a variety of smartphones
- Ability to quickly recognize potential variations of voice command and offer alternatives to the
user
- Automatic audible notification of emails and calendar appointments
- A fast interface
The Infiniti InTouch system is an example of a product in which the user needs are partially addressed
but the machine needs cannot perform the tasks as promised, as it was discussed in Tango and
Montanaris paper. The InTouch system lacks the balance required between addressing the user and
machine needs, and the result is a product that will become obsolete and stay unused because it causes
frustration to its users. A more capable hardware/software package could have eliminated the issues
with the InTouch system, which means that possibly a balance between machine and user needs would
have been reached.
Normans paper on design rules recognizes the need to classify the slips that produce errors depending
on their source, and outlines different design practices that aimed at preventing the occurrence of slips
or minimizing the effect of the error. Slips could come from the formation of intentions, the faulty
activation of sequences or schemas, or from faulty triggering of schemas, as it applied to the current
computer systems in year 1983. Computer systems in 1983, when the paper was written, were very
different to todays smart phone. The errors outlined by Norman do not apply directly to smartphones
since most of the errors were based on the sequence in which buttons were pushed in a large control
panel, and those sequences are mostly built-in on modern electronic devices. Nonetheless, the design
practices proposed by Normal still apply, although in a different way. For example, the ability of a smart
phone to differentiate warnings, alarms, phone calls, messages, among other phone notifications is an
application of the design practices mentioned by Norman on his 1983 paper.
 Moreno Ferguson 3

The design process of smart phones like the Apple iPhone lean towards the activity-centered type, and
it can be noted in the lack of ability to customize its functions, the relatively simple to use interface, its
simple geometry and minimal number of buttons, etc. When the first Apple iPhone was launched, it was
different to any other smart phone ever released, and it was notable by the lack of a full keyboard, a
slick design, large touch screen, aluminum body, among other remarkable features. Many were skeptical
of the iPhones potential success and capabilities, but many were also emotionally attracted to its
innovative looks and technology, what lead to an avalanche of competition that to date, follow the same
design principles.

 Moreno Ferguson 4

References
Tango F., R. Montanari, Shaping the drivers interaction: how the new vehicle systems match the
technological requirements and the human needs, Cogition Technology and Work, Vol. 8, 2006, pp.
215226

Norman, D.A., Design Rules Based on Analyses of Human Error, Communications of the ACM, April
1983, pp 254-258

Norman, D.A., Emotion and Design: Attractive Things Work Better, Interactions, July-August, 2002, pp
36-42

Norman, D.A., Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful, Interactions, July-August 2005, pp 14-19