ABSTRACT
Making a splash to make a difference: marketing human-centered design As explained in somewhat more elegant terms in the Preface, the foregoing collection of success stories is basically a sales pitch. What’s being pitched is a fairly new product called cognitive engineering, but the reality is that its most active ingredient-something called human-centered design-has been around for ages under brand names such as Taylorism, human engineering, engineering psychology, ergonomics, and human factors. Yet despite a rather impressive track record, very few ordinary citizens are aware of it, and even fewer fully appreciate its accomplishments or potential. That naturally raises marketing questions, several of which I examine rather closely in this chapter. In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess that I’m more interested in the generic ingredient than the cognitive engineering brand, and that bias is refl ected throughout the chapter. Nevertheless, I think it is fair to say that all my observations apply equally to both.
