Designed for Use, 2nd Edition

Chapter 5 Activity-Centered Design

So far in this book, we’ve assumed that human-centered design processes are always a good idea. The fact is, they are not always the best idea. Another approach is to make activities the center of your design process. For many products, this makes more sense.

In human-centered design, the idea is to get a deep understanding of the people who are going to use your product and design something that is tailor-made for them. In activity-centered design, products are tailor-made for activities or goals.

This isn’t really a new idea; most design is activity-centered. A door handle is not designed for a specific ...