9- Zach Drucker

I view help systems as a last resort in user-centered designs. I think that any software could be designed obviously enough to exclude help systems. That being said, I think it would be difficult to know that your design is user-centered enough to exclude such a thing. 

Help systems make sense in the earlier stages of an obvious design, it is not substituting good design but rather aiding in the development of its obviousness. As the book discussed briefly, help systems are in many ways made for the expert user, I think if a help system were necessary it would be best suited for the spots further tucked away in a design. As we discussed previously, users can and often do learn things, I do not think that a help system is the best way to provide for an ease of learning. Based on my limited knowledge of personal experience and minor observations, users tend to test the waters of a new design by simply clicking links until they get their desired result, if a designer can limit the possibilities of each task, users can quickly learn a new design.

Based on the information in chapter 6, I think the category of people to focus on would be the intermediate users. Intermediate users are the largest group of users and generally understand the basics of a design. Designing for the intermediate user I'd say would be the best middle ground between a programmer's mindset and a user-centered design that pleases the user.