Reason 2: Target Audiences Expand and Adapt

As technology has penetrated the mainstream consumer market, the target audience has expanded and continues to change dramatically. Development organizations have been slow to react to this evolution.

The original users of computer-based products were enthusiasts (also known as early adopters) possessing expert knowledge of computers and mechanical devices, a love of technology, the desire to tinker, and pride in their ability to troubleshoot and repair any problem. Developers of these products shared similar characteristics. In essence, users and developers of these systems were one and the same. Because of this similarity, the developers practiced "next-bench" design, a method of designing for the user who is literally sitting one bench away in the development lab. Not surprisingly, this approach met with relative success, and users rarely if ever complained about difficulties. 

Why would they complain? Much of their joy in using the product was the amount of tinkering and fiddling required to make it work, and enthusiast users took immense pride in their abilities to make these complicated products function. Consequently, a "machine-oriented" or "system-oriented" approach

met with little resistance and became the development norm.

Today, however, all that has changed dramatically. Users are apt to have little technical knowledge of computers and mechanical devices, little patience for tinkering with the product just purchased, and completely different expectations from those of the designer. More important, today's user is not even remotely comparable to the designer in skill set, aptitude, expectation, or almost any attribute that is relevant to the design process. Where in the past, companies might have found Ph.D. chemists using their products, today they will find high-school graduates performing similar functions. Obviously, "next-bench" design simply falls apart as a workable design strategy when there is a great discrepancy between user and designer, and companies employing such a strategy, even inadvertently, will continue to produce hard-to-use products.

Designers aren't hobbyist enthusiasts (necessarily) anymore; most are trained professionals educated in human computer interaction, industrial design, human factors engineering, or computer science, or a combination of these. Whereas before it was unusual for a nontechnical person to use electronic or computer-based equipment, today it is almost impossible for the average person not to use such a product in either the workplace or in private life. The overwhelming majority of products, whether in the workplace or the home, be they cell phones, DVRs, web sites, or sophisticated testing equipment, are intended for this less technical ^USer" ^Today ⁵ wants a tool, not another hobby.