On 31 Aug 2009, at 00:31, Todd Zaki Warfel wrote:
On Aug 30, 2009, at 11:34 AM, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote:
When they build their iPhones or iPods without an ability to
replace the battery, thereby forcing customers to buy new models
year over year, they are customer focused?
Or they were just designing for behavior, knowing that it's common
for iPhone/iPod customers to upgrade every 16-24 months, relying on
that, and designing for it.
In Asia, it's common for people to upgrade their phones every 9-12
months. So, if you're a smart consumer electronics company there,
you're going to design for that.
I don't think it's so much UCD, but rather keeping the user's
behavior at the center of their design, knowing what they can get
away with, and designing for that behavior.
Not to mention that it's much easier to build products that are
robust, and don't flex and feel cheap when you don't have to worry
about making a large heavy slab of it be detachable (and only detach
when the person using it want's that to happen).
Then there's the other useful bits of functionality that you can
squeeze in when you don't have to mount everything around a heavy lump
of battery that needs to be easily replaceable.
And, a Todd says, if the majority of your customer base isn't
replacing batteries - is it customer focussed to add a feature that
they don't want or need? I've got a lot of electric doodads around the
house. The vast majority have never had a spare or replacement battery
installed - and likely never will.
Adrian
--
http://quietstars.com - twitter.com/adrianh - delicious.com/adrianh
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