Contextual Inquiry

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Contextual Inquiry

• Material SourceProfessor John Landay, UCB

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User Study Methods the different fields they
come from

• Social Psychology
• Focus Groups
• Business, marketing technique
• Laboratory studies
• Experimental Psychology
• Think-aloud protocols
• Cognitive Psychology
• Participant/observer ethnographic studies
• Anthropology

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Contextual Inquiry

• Technique for examining and understanding users
  and their workplace, tasks, issues and
  preferences.
• http//www.infodesign.com.au
• Witness users performing tasks
• Objective rather than subjective as with
  questionnaire
• An evolving method
• A kind of enthnographic or participatory
  design method
• Combines aspects of other methods
• Interviewing, think-aloud protocols,
  participant/observer in the context of the work
• Part of Contextual Design
• Read www.incent.com

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HCI methods in the design process
Contextual Inquiry
Tasks
Think-Aloud Usability Studies
Heuristic Evaluation
Cognitive Walkthrough
GOMS
Empirical Methods
Analytic Methods

• Contextual Inquiry is used in beginning of design
  process

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Contextual Inquiry

• Interpretive field research method
• Depends on conversations with users in the
  context of their work
• Recommends direct observation when possible
• When not possible
• cued recall of past experience, or
• recreation of related experience
• Used to define requirements, plans and designs.
• Drives the creative process
• In original design
• In considering new features or functionality

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Why Context?

• Design complete work process
• Fits into fabric of entire operations
• Not just point solutions to specific problems
• Integration! e.g. those who bought this also
• Design from data (not instinct or guess)
• Not just opinions, negotiation
• Not just a list of features

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Who conducts it?

• Interviewers Cross-functional team
• Designers
• UI specialists
• Product managers
• Marketing
• Technical people
• Customers
• Between 6 20
• Representative of different roles

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Key concepts in Contextual Inquiry

• Context
• Understand users' needs in their work or living
  environment
• Partnership
• Work with users as co-investigators
• Interpretation
• Assigning meaning to the observations
• Focus
• Listen and probe from a clearly defined set of
  concerns

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Context

• Definition
• The interrelated conditions within which
  something occurs or exists
• Understand work in its natural environment
• Go to the user
• Observe real work
• Use real examples and artifacts
• Artifact An object created by human
  workmanship
• Interview while she/he is working

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Master-Apprentice model

• Master Apprentice model allows customer to
  teach us what they do!
• Master does the work talks about it while
  working
• We interrupt to ask questions as they go
• Each step reminds the user of thenext
• Skill knowledge is usually tacit(cant put it in
  books)
• Studying many tasks, thedesigner can abstract
  away
• Sometimes literal apprenticeshipworks
  (Matsushita Home Bakery)!

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Key distinctions about context

• Contextual Inquiry
• Ongoing experience concrete data
• Objective
• Spontaneous, as it happens
• What customers actually need

• Interviews, Surveys, Focus Groups
• Summary data abstractions
• Subjective
• Limited by reliability of human memory
• What customers think say they want

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Elements of User's Context Pay Attention to all
of these

• User's work space
• User's work
• User's work intentions
• User's words
• Tools used
• How people work together
• Business goals (e.g. always buy from XYZ Ltd.)
• Organizational and cultural structure

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Standard Contextual InquiryWork-based Interview

• Use when
• Product or process already exists
• Or a near competitors
• User is able to complete a task while you observe
  
• Work can be interrupted

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Interview note-taking

• When to take notes?
• Any observations not being recorded
• Note taking can help you pay closer attention
• Notes lead to faster turn-around
• Do not let it interfere with interviewing
• How to record?
• What the user says in quotes
• What the user does plain text
• Your interpretation in parentheses
• Write fast!

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Reasons for variation on the standard work-based
interview

• Different goals
• Designing a known product
• Know the competition
• Addressing a new work domain
• Study what replacing
• Designing for a new technology
• Types of tasks that make work-based inquiry
  impractical
• Intermittent instrument or keep logs
• Uninterruptible video and review later
• Extremely long point sample and review

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Partnership

• Definition
• A relationship characterized by close cooperation
  
• Build an equitable relationship with the user
• Suspend your assumptions and beliefs
• Invite the user into the inquiry process
• Information acquired through dialog
• User is expert employ master/apprentice model
• Encourage user to speak
• Listen for non-verbal communications

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Analysis

• In the momentSimultaneous data collection and
  analysis during interview
• Post interview
• Using notes, tapes, and transcripts
• Analysis by a group
• Integrates multiple perspectives
• Creates shared vision
• Creates shared focus
• Builds teams
• Saves time

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Focus

• Focus is a perspective
• We always have an entering focus
• Better to make it explicit
• Characteristics of focus
• set of pre-conceivedassumptions and beliefs
• reveals and conceals
• Show me how you do
• Decide what to ask about
• Still use general questions
• Not an interview!

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Setting Focus

• Form a team of stakeholders
• Brainstorm questions, assumptions, design ideas.
  
• Each group member brainstorms individually
• Group meets and brainstorms
• Delay evaluation during brainstorming
• Record the items generated
• Prune questions
• Defer Qs that participants cannot answer
• Conclusions about other peoples experiences
• How large is the market?
• Would you buy this product?

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Key Benefits

• Can be used early in development cycle
• Defines user work problems and opportunities for
  improved products
• Develops a partnership between engineering and
  customers
• Creates a shared system vision for the whole
  design team
• Combines with other development processes
• Identifies both short-term and long-term product
  enhancements

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Key Limits

• Requires additional time and expense to set up
  customer site visits
• Requires interviewing and analysis skills
• Requires a method of tracking the large number of
  design ideas that result
• Consider Design Rational (gIBIS)

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Example of CI

• Video of sample session with a eCommerce site
  http//www.cs.cmu.edu/bam/uicourse/EHCIcontexuali
  nquiry.mpg
• See video of review of CI http//ilserver.sp.cs.c
  mu.edu/view.pl?id484 at timemark 010603
• Issues to observe
• Interview of work in progress, in context
• Actual session of doing a task
• Not an interview asking about possible tasks,
  etc.
• Questions to clarify about routine, motivations
• Why do certain actions need intent for actions
• Notice problems (breakdowns)
• Notice what happens that causes users to do
  something (triggers)
• E.g. appearance of error messages, other
  feedback, external events (phone ringing), etc.

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Summary

• Think about the user community first
• Who they are, what their lifestyles are, what
  youre assumptions about them are.
• Selecting tasks
• real tasks with reasonable functionality coverage
• complete, specific tasks of what user wants to do
• Contextual inquiry
• way to answer the task analysis questions
• interview observe real users
• use the master-apprentice model to get them to
  teach you