in the last 30 years, there has not been one website or other digital innovation that can point back to UCD as the defining factor for its success.
How ever as Jakob Buur noticed at a recent presentation on design anthropology; not listening to, involving or understanding the user has never proved to be the single point of success either.
It’s a good thing that design research and the technology business in general are directing attention to the development world or emergent markets (btw a noun that may express why attention is being paid to the seond and third world at this point in history). I’m glad because the digital divide between western and non-western countries seems to decrease. It’s not only a positive thing (in most cases) for the actual countries and cultures in question, but it’s also a good thing for the world of tech. People now gain the possibility of not exaggerating too much when easily including the whole world in technological progress…
May I just humbly suggest that you don’t exotizise the unfamiliar to the extend expressed in this otherwise brilliant interview: .
Today we face the mass extinction of plant and animal species. But we also face the mass extinction of languages and modes of thought and perception. Just as disappearing plant species may hold the keys to preventing or curing physical diseases, the modes of being and thinking of so-called primitive peoples may hold crucial keys to solving some of humanities recurrent problems such as prejudice and warfare and emergent ones such as global pollution.
I really believe that instead of gaining new insights you may risk repeating the failures of the development business, if you don’t try to understand the actual life worlds and premises of the people you study preferably to going along with what you think people are like.