There are many possible approaches to design . There are no inevitable consequences of (not) being user-centred. Good design happens without being user-centred, and bad design is not impossible when being user-centred.

It is not a question of being user-centred, usage-centred, designer-centred or art-centred. What matters is how we approach design and what guarantees come with different approaches. Very little can be said with any confidence at a level of abstraction that is as vague as 'centredness'.

HCI is about risk management. Being user-centred should reduce a range of known risks of systems failure or unacceptability, but only if the design team focuses on what is unacceptable and what will really make a system fail. In this sense, if we want a design focus at all, it should be success-centred!

Designing without any idea of what constitutes success is the real danger, and this is just as easy in a supposedly user-centred setting as in any other. Indeed, any approach to design that assumes that some element of quality in use must predominate is highly risky. Success depends on a wide range of outcomes, and usability and user acceptance are only part of this.

Our job in HCI is not to dominate the design process or to insist on a fixed set of approaches. Our job is to understand the human risks to success associated with usability and misfit with the context of use, and to work with project sponsors to get them to identify where success must include usability, user acceptance and system fit. The latter can only be achieved reliably and consistently within a user-centred approach.