Wendy March and her research on "ordinary people"

Wendy March is an interaction designer, and she is doing a interesting research on teen girls and communications technology. (http://www.intel.com/research/researchers/w_march.htm)
The angle she focuses on is not the "special", but the ordinary people. It is a remarkable angle, and made for a compelling argument that the design has impact the ordinary, boring activities that usually escape the notice of researchers and product developers.
One example is: Interviewing a Japanese housewife about how she spends money, it turns out she takes a wad of cash with her every week and physically deposits it in three bank accounts in three different banks. Asked about online banking, she explained that it was too expensive, and too easy -- the walking and depositing was integral to the way she managed her money. "We keep trying to make things seamless and easy," observed March about this discovery, "but maybe people don't want it to be seamless and easy."