Yes, you are right demographics by themselves is not important, but rather the generalizations which are real around those demographics that we use. BUT the demographics are necessary for gaining insights (and often even creating) those generalizations.
I'm not saying that you are saying this Jared, but I just want to add that "Market Research" IS an important data contributor for design research. They've been doing this longer and with some pretty descent results, so there is definitely a lot of cross-pollination that can go on between market and user research. Demographic studies is a great tool for user researchers to tie their own data studies into. Regardless, I think my main and more important point is that activity centered design feels soul-less to me. It's motivation as I've heard people describe it here and other places is discount UCD (getting to the point quickly). And like all things discount, you get what you pay for. That being said, sometimes ya got no choice b/c you can only afford the discount version of things and something is always better than nothing. But I think that's why for me ACD is a part of a greater whole of UCD that you can pick and choose from depending on the total context of the design environment. --dave On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 6:13 AM, Jared Spool <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Nov 12, 2008, at 5:56 PM, David Malouf wrote: > > If I were designing it from a UCD perspective, I do care, or that the >> person is elderly and needs large print, or any other demographic type >> information. >> > > Just for the record, properly done UCD wouldn't care about demographics. It > would care about behaviors. > > It doesn't matter what age someone is. If they need large print to complete > their objective, they need large print, independent of age (or income group, > geographic location political persuasion, gender preference, dental history, > dislike of sushi, . . .) > > Jared > -- David Malouf http://synapticburn.com/ http://ixda.org/ http://motorola.com/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
