September 06, 2003
paper: contextual inquiry
Contextual Design: Contextual Inquiry (Chapter 3)
Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt
Contextual Design: Defining Customer Centered Systems, 1998
This article discusses in depth the contextual inquiry phase of
the contextual design methodology. Contextual inquiry emphasizes
interacting directly with workers at their place of work within
the constructs of a master/apprentice relationship model in order
for designers to gain a real insight into the needs and work
practices of their users.
- Contextual Inquiry
- Design process work when they build on natural human
behavior
- Use existing relationship models to interact with the
customer
- Master / Apprentice Model
- When you're watching the work happen, learning is easy
- Seeing the work reveals what matters
- Seeing the work reveals details
- Seeing the work reveals structure
- Every current activity recalls past instances
- Contextual Inquiry is apprenticeship compressed in time
- Four Principles of Contextual Inquiry
- Contextual Inquiry tailors apprenticeship to the needs of
design teams
- Context
- Go where the work is to get the best data
- Avoid summary data by watching the work unfold
- Avoid abstractions by returning to real artifacts and
events
- Span time by replaying past events in detail
- Keep the customer concrete by exploring ongoing work
- Partnership
- Help customers articulate their work experience
- Alternate between watching and probing
- Teach the customer how to see the work by probing work
structure
- Find the work issues behind design ideas
- Let the customer shape your understanding of the work
- Avoid other relationship models
- Interviewer/Interviewee
- You aren't there to get a list of questions answered
- Expert/Novice
- You aren't their to answer questions either
- Guest/Host
- Partnership creates a sense of shared quest
- Interpretation
- Determine what customer words and actions mean together
- Design ideas are the product of a chain of reasoning
- Design is built upon interpretation of facts - so the
interpretation better be right
- Sharing interpretations with customers won't bias the
data
- Sharing interpretations teaches customers to see
structure in the work
- Customers fine-tune interpretations
- Nonverbal cues confirm interpretations
- Focus
- Clear focus steers the conversation
- Focus reveals detail
- Focus conceals the unexpected
- Internal feelings guide how to interview
- Commit to challenging your assumptions, not validating
them
- Contextual Interview Structure
- Conventional interview
- Get to know customers and their issues
- Transition
- Explain the new rules of a contextual interview
- Contextual interview proper
- Observe and probe ongoing work
- Wrap-up
- Feedback a comprehensive interpretation
- Context, Partnership, Interpretation, and Focus!
Posted by jheer at September 6, 2003 01:32 PM
Context has a dynamic dimension. How contextual inquiry manages it?
Certainly, dynamicity is unavoidable. I think part of the job of any good ethnographer (whether trained or amateur) is to be watching for such dynamic aspects, and in the case of technology design, how that dynamic affects work practices and social interactions relevant to any technological "solutions." Contextual inquiry, as presented, doesn't necessarily include an extended period of observation, so it may be harder to capture more subtle or low-frequency trends... this is the domain of a richer ethnographic study. Of course, some things you can never predict... but real-world contact with target users and their practices can spark night-and-day differences in the quality of subsequent interface designs, and realistically, such contact must often be done under time and resource constraints.
