Context of Contextual Design

The way in which people carry out their work — what they actually do in a day to accomplish a task or solve a problem — is often complex, unplanned and highly specific to the individual user. This means that a new digital product must be designed to fit intuitively into the users’ existing daily flow, rather than just making changes to their interaction with it. This is a difficult goal to achieve, but one that can have huge payoffs for companies that get it right.

The Contextual Design process, developed by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt, is an anthropologically-inspired method for observing how people do their jobs and designing software to support those processes. It combines useful practices from anthropology, psychology and engineering and makes them easily accessible to designers in commercial settings.

Its key feature is partnership — the interviewer does not enter the field with a preformed list of questions, as is typical in other research methods such as surveys or focus groups. The interviewer adopts a master-apprentice relationship with the user, seeking to understand their work practice in detail. This approach also helps the designer to identify constraints on the work that may be impeding efficiency, safety or productivity.

What is a Work Model in the Context of Contextual Design?

Work models, derived from the observational data gathered during contextual inquiry interviews, help to reveal the complexity of a person’s daily workflow and the specific ways in which they complete their tasks. Typically, a sequence model shows the steps and tasks in a workflow; a process model describes how those tasks are completed over time; and a cultural model captures constraints on a person’s work practice (such as policy, organizational culture or personal values).

The translation of user needs from observational research to functional requirements is a critical step in any project. Unfortunately, this stage is often the source of much frustration and miscommunication, because it can be very difficult to convey the detailed nature of a person’s work to someone who has not observed it firsthand. The structured and rigor-oriented approach that Contextual Design provides can help to bridge this gap, by providing an exemplar framework for interpreting and consolidating the gathered data.

Once consolidated, the data from the contextual inquiry can be used by a design team to invent a new system that will transform their users’ work practice. The team uses the consolidated observations to guide conversations about how technology can improve users’ lives and their current business processes, rather than just focusing on what could be done with technology without consideration for how it might impact existing practices or change human behavior.

Contextual Design is resource-heavy — in order to do it well, you’ll need a team with enough in-house UX and research resources to commit to the observational interviews and work to develop the resulting model of the work process. Alternatively, you’ll need to engage a design agency or consulting firm to take on the task. The upfront work can be quite labor intensive, as you’ll need 2-3 weeks to conduct the observational interviews and then 2-3 weeks to interpret and consolidate the data. However, the resulting data can provide a wealth of insights for the entire development lifecycle and be the basis for more detailed user testing.