\section{Illustration of the problem}

\FigureImposeWidth{ETmultipleChoiceVCRprogramming}{Did you ever program a VCR?}
{.2\textwidth}

Many products have characteristics which are determined by technology
push rather than user need. Take for instance most video recorders,
which are often way too difficult to program
for ordinary (non-technical) people. This is illustrated by 
figure~\ref{fig:ETmultipleChoiceVCRprogramming}.

\FigureImposeWidth{ETproductCreationCycle}{Product Creation Cycle}
{.8\textwidth}

One cause of this problem is the long chain of activities which results
in a product, as shown in figure~\ref{fig:ETproductCreationCycle}.
This long chain of activities also involves many different stakeholders,
ranging from potential customers, and product managers to development
engineers and production personnel.

\FigureImposeWidth{ETarchitecting}{Bridging the gap between Human
Experience and Engineering}{.8\textwidth}

A lot of the stakeholders ''live'' in the engineering world,
which addresses a lot technology concerns. The other end of the
stakeholder chain, the human users, live in the real world, with
many human concerns, such as emotions, feelings, perceptions et cetera.
Figure~\ref{fig:ETarchitecting} visualizes the gap between those
stakeholders.

Both figures~\ref{fig:ETproductCreationCycle} and \ref{fig:ETarchitecting}
already hint at the crucial role played by the architect by architecting
the solution.
