Contextual design

Contextual design (CD) is a user-centered design process developed by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt. It incorporates ethnographic methods for gathering data relevant to the product via field studies, rationalizing workflows, and designing human-computer interfaces. In practice, this means that researchers aggregate data from customers in the field where people are living and applying these findings into a final product. Contextual design can be seen as an alternative to engineering and feature driven models of creating new systems.

The contextual design process consists of the following top-level steps: contextual inquiry, interpretation, data consolidation, visioning, storyboarding, user environment design, and prototyping.

Contextual inquiry is a field data collection technique used to capture detailed information about how users of a product interact with the product in their normal work environment. This information is captured by both observations of user behavior and conversations with the user while she or he works. A key aspect of the technique is to partner with the user, letting their work and the issues they encounter guide the interview. Key takeaways from the technique are to learn what users actually do, why they do it that way, latent needs, desires, and core values.

Data from each interview is analyzed and key issues and insights are captured. Detailed work models are also created in order to understand the different aspects of the work that matter for design. Contextual design consists of five work models which are used to model the work tasks and details of the working environment. These work models are:

Data from individual customer interviews are analyzed in order to reveal patterns and the structure across distinct interviews. Models of the same type can be consolidated together (but not generalized—detail must be maintained). Another method of processing the observations is making an affinity diagram ("wall"), as described by Beyer & Holtzblatt:

Beyer & Holtzblatt propose the following color-coding convention for grouping the notes, from lowest to highest level in the hierarchy:

Beyer & Holtzblatt emphasize the importance of building the entire affinity diagram in one or two sessions rather than building smaller affinity diagrams over many sessions. This immersion in the data for an extended period of time helps teams see the broad scope of a problem quickly and encourages a paradigm shift of thought rather than assimilation of ideas.

The design ideas and relevant issues that arise during the process should be included in the affinity diagram. Any holes in the data and areas that need more information should also be labeled. After completing the wall, participants "walk" the affinity diagram to stimulate new ideas and identify any remaining issues or holes in data. The affinity diagram is a bottom-up method. Consolidated data may also be used to create a cause-and-effect diagram or a set of personas describing typical users of the proposed system.

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