To assume the user is always right is untrue, and just outright silly. Though it is important to fit the needs of your ideal target group, by focusing too much on the specific user, you narrow that target group. It focuses too much on miniscule details that don't really help much with the overall design. By instead shifting focus to people in a similar situation, designers are now able to expand their target user base. People in the same or a similar situation to one another often have the same design needs. Each individual user might be different, but as they all are in the same situation and have the same needs, they form the target user base.
Features can be a selling point in some technologies, and a deterent from others. Design that focuses on content and quality of features tends to sell better than those focused on quantity. Too many features can make a design much more complicated than it needs to be. Most users never use designs to their full potential. They learn to use the basic features, adapt to them, but then cease to go further than that. Having these features remain unused makes them a waste of time and money, both would have been better spent on other aspects of the design.
In Project #2, I feel we could have had the users actually point on our design where they thought certain controls were, or what certain aspects of the design did. By leaving it at only questions, it allows for the users to develop their own image of our design, instead of having the shared situation of seeing it.
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