This document summarizes methods for contextual inquiry in interaction design, including interviews, user observations, literature reviews, and competitive reviews. It provides guidelines for conducting user interviews such as focusing on goals and tasks, avoiding leading questions, and asking for stories and demonstrations. It also outlines planning, running, and documenting user observations. Literature reviews should encompass business documents, research articles, and related online materials.

1. Contextual Inquiry
in Interaction
Design
IFI7313.DT Interaction Design Methods

2. (Leinonen, Toikkanen, & Silfvast, 2008)

3. Contextual Inquiry methods
• Interviews
• User observations
• Literature review
• Competitive review

4. Cooper, A., Reimann, R., Cronin, D, & Noessel,
C. (2014). About Face: The Essentials of
Interaction Design. Indianapolis, IN: John Wiley
& Sons, Inc.

5. Interviews

6. Guidelines for user interviews
• Interview where the interaction happens
• Avoid a fixed set of questions
• Focus on the goal first, tasks second
• Avoid making the user a designer
• Avoid discussion of technology
• Avoid leading questions
• Ask for stories, demonstrations and a tour
• Direct the interview as new issues arise
• Interpretation: read between the lines
(Cooper, Reimann, Cronin, & Noessel, 2014)

7. Goal-oriented questions
• Goals — What makes a good day? A bad day?
• Opportunity — What activities currently waste your time?
• Priorities — What is most important to you?
• Information — What helps you make decisions?
(Cooper et al, 2014)

8. System-oriented questions
• Function — What are the most common things you do with
the product?
• Frequency — What parts of the product do you use most?
• Preference — What are your favorite aspects of the product?
What drives you crazy?
• Failure — How do you work around problems?
• Expertise — What shortcuts do you employ?
(Cooper et al, 2014)

9. Workflow-oriented questions
• Process — What did you do when you first came in today?
And after that?
• Occurrence and recurrence — How often do you do this?
What things do you do weekly or monthly, but not every
day?
• Exception — What constitutes a typical day? What would
be an unusual event?
(Cooper et al, 2014)

10. Attitude-oriented questions
• Aspiration — What do you see yourself doing five years
from now?
• Avoidance — What would you prefer not to do? What do
you procrastinate on?
• Motivation — What do you enjoy most about your job (or
lifestyle)? What do you always tackle first?
(Cooper et al, 2014)

11. User observations

12. Planning
• Establish objectives and information requirements
• Establish the times, places, and people who will be
observed
• Decide on the recording technique that you will use
(Cooper et al, 2014)

13. Running
• Make sure that those being observed are aware of the study
• Run a pilot observation
• Try to be unobtrusive
• Take notes and clarify later, if needed
• If possible, take a photo of the observation area
• Write down first impressions immediately after the observation
(Cooper et al, 2014)

14. Literature review

15. Literature review
• Business documents: marketing plans, brand strategy,
market research, user surveys, customer support data
• Technology specifications
• Research articles
• Related news in media, reviews
• Related posts and discussions in social media
(Cooper et al, 2014)

16. References
• Cooper, A., Reimann, R., Cronin, D, & Noessel, C. (2014). About Face: The
Essentials of Interaction Design. Indianapolis, IN: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
• Leinonen, T., Toikkanen, T., & Silvfast, K. (2008). Software as Hypothesis:
Research-Based Design Methodology. In Proceedings of the Tenth Anniversary
Conference on Participatory Design 2008 (pp. 61–70). Indianapolis, IN:
Indiana University.

17. Photos
• othree: ZOOM H5, https://www.flickr.com/photos/othree/15788446592/

18. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
International License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Hans Põldoja
hans.poldoja@tlu.ee
IFI7313.DT Interaction Design Methods
https://ifi7313.wordpress.com
Tallinn University
School of Digital Technologies