Introduction to Contextual Inquiry

1. Intro to Contextual Inquiry
Understand your user
Dave Flotree
dave.flotree@incontextdesign.com
Karen Holtzblatt, CEO 978.823.0100 www.incontextdesign.com
Hugh Beyer, CTO info@incontextdesign.com www.innovationincool.com
Twitter: @incontextdesign

2. Contextual Inquiry
Provides reliable, detailed knowledge of what people
actually do and what they really care about

3. Contextual Inquiry
A set of principles, not steps
Context
Partnership
Interpretation
Focus

4. The principle of Context
What people say they do
And what they actually do
Are different

5. What is Context?
Get as close to the work as possible
 Go to the customer
 Interview while they are working
 Be grounded in real objects and events
 Pay attention to non-verbal communication
Ongoing work versus summary experience
 People tend to give summaries
 Ongoing work is never summarized
Stay concrete, don’t abstract
 Ongoing work. “Show me…”
 Recent retrospective account . “When was the last time you…”
 Look at artifacts

6. Don’t summarize, don’t abstract
What do you do when you go grocery
shopping?

7. The principle of Partnership
People know
everything about
what they do…
They just can’t
tell you

8. What is Partnership?
Partnership as relationship
 The user is the expert
 So follow their lead
Withdrawal
 Help the users articulate and
see their work practice
Avoid ineffective interview styles
 The Traditional Interviewer
 The Expert/Novice Return
 The Guest/Host
Apprenticeship is the preferred model
 Listen, learn, be humble, don’t judge
 And assume that people do things for a reason
 Return to the ongoing work
• It always keeps you in the apprenticeship model

9. The principle of Interpretation
It’s not the facts
that matter…
It’s the
interpretation of
the facts

10. What is Interpretation?
Interpretation is the data
 A shared understanding of what is going on Customer
 Offer interpretations
• Don’t ask open-ended
questions Fact
Listen for the “No” tune the interpretation
 Huh?
 Umm... could be Hypothesis
 “They” would like it
 “Yes” comes with elaboration
Implication
 Watch for non-verbal clues
 Check your design ideas as they occur
Design
Idea

11. The principle of Focus
“What you know, you know,
what you don't know, you don't
know.
This is true wisdom.”
- Confucius

12. What is Focus?
Know your purpose entering focus
 We all have an entering focus what
• A set of preconceived assumptions and beliefs we make
 Drive interviews with your project focus up
what we assume
• Clear idea of what work you are trying to understand about the user’s
 Expand your focus world
what we see
• Challenge your assumptions, probe the unexpected
Probe to expand focus
 Surprises and contradictions
 “Nods” — What you assume is true
 What you do not know
 The problem behind solutions
what we miss
user’s world

13. Contextual Inquiry
Context
Partnership
Interpretation
Focus

14. How to get started
It doesn’t take many interviews
 3-5 people who do the same activity can characterize markets of millions
 Rule of thumb for numbers of interviewees
• 4 for each work role; 3 in each significant context (e.g., skill level, tech savvy)
• 3 organizations of each significant type (e.g., size, geography)
Make the data you bring back actionable
 Use a process like an interpretation session with other people
 Create session notes (virtual Post-Its) and diagrams you can use to…
Build an affinity diagram and other work models as appropriate
 Reveals underlying pattern: intent, strategy, structure, and scope
 Shows what matters to the entire population, keeping variations that
matter
 Eliminates focusing on individual users
 Provides real data for design thinking, personas, scenarios, user stories

15. Sign up for the webinar:
Adopting Agile: Successful UX in an Agile World
November 27th
www.incontextdesign.com
Thanks!
Dave Flotree
dave.flotree@incontextdesign.com