Human Centered Design considered harmful

Once again we hear from Don Norman, and once again he changes everything. We shouldn't focus on tasks anymore, now we focus on activites. He points out that many successful things today were designed through Human-Centered design, like the automobile, which was designed to be able to perform an activity, not do a specific task. It seems to me to be the approach of "What would people use this for?", rather than "What can we make this thing do?".

One interesting thing I liked that he talked about was the adaption of people to technology, rather than vice versa. I have encountered this in video games, especially first person shooters, if people deviate to much from the standard controls, I don't like it, and try and switch it back, or at least get it as close as possible, even if it's supposedly better. It seems to me that eventually you feel as if you have "mastered" technology, and if it changes, that mastery, and the comfort it provides, is gone, and range from disconcerting, to violating.

Anyway cool beans.