The Design Challenge

Reading chapter 6, The Design Challenge, reminded me of some of the challenges I'm facing in designing the instructional project for Beatty's 801 class. I noticed parallels where designers must please their clients, who are often not the end users. If a designer doesn't take the time to know the users, the usability or ease of their design may not be clear to the users. There is also the consideration of time and cost going into design. These considerations affect the final product and its usability or understanding to the user.
Similarly, in instructional design, a common problem is that the designers are not the instructor and do not know the learners well. When a thorough learner and context analysis is not done preliminarly, the instructional design often comes out flawed and/or is ineffective. Whether designing for instruction, or a user product, good designers anticipate problems and become as knowledgable as possible about the target population (whether they are students, factory workers, corporate employees or an end-user of a product.)
Norman pointed out the examples of problems designing toasters, faucets, tables, and even rulers for the left-handed person! Interestingly enough, he also pointed out how to do things wrong. So if I simply deduct the opposite, I should be able to design things in the "right" way. Let's take a look:
Wrong: Make things invisible, Right: Make things visible
Wrong: Be arbitrary, Right: Be rational and objective
Wrong: Be inconsistent, Right: Be consistent
Wrong: Make operations unintelligible, Right: Make operations easy to follow and understand
Wrong: Be impolite, Right: Be polite and considerate
Wrong; Make operations dangerous, Right: Be safe!