4- Tim Wilson

While you will always want to design your projects with the average user in mind, the average user is not always correct. Hoekman explains, like in the case of the low-card sandwich, the user may sometimes think they want more than they actually do. According to the book, the average user only ends up learning about 20% of what a typical application has to offer. So, instead of asking the user what they need, it is better to find out what they need through other options like usability tests and contextual inquiries.

A situation-centric approach is one that, instead of designing an interface for a type of user, designs an interface for a type of situation that user might find themselves in. These can be discovered with use cases and flow charts. By learning and designing for situations, the designer can discover flaws or glitches in their interface that any type of user could run into, not just one specific persona.

Taking the above into consideration, a better approach to designing a more situation-centric interface that is appropriate for the majority of personas may have been to simply observe (remotely or without the user's knowledge) the interaction with the machine without my intervention. When posed questions about what they want or how to do things, the user may fib(unintentionally) because they are not totally aware of what they want, or could be answering or acting to appease the tester. By observing with no interactionh you could learn what the user has issues with and what works well, without influence from potentially leading questions. This way the designer could discover both what needs fixing and what works well.