Contextual Design (eBook)

Contextual Design 2
Contextual Design 4
Copyright 5
Acclaim for Contextual Design: Design for Life 6
Dedication 8
Contents 10
Acknowledgments 16
1 - Gathering User Data 20
1 - Introduction 22
Design for life: the Cool Project 27
Immersion: tuning intuition and design thinking 34
Design in teams 38
Contextual Design V2 40
Part 1: Gathering user data 41
Chapter 2: User data drives design. User-centered design starts from the recognition that all innovation has to start with an un... 41
Chapter 3: Principles of Contextual Inquiry. Contextual Inquiry is the core field research process of Contextual Design. In this... 42
Chapter 4: The Interpretation Session. Gathering data isn’t enough—the insights need to be shared across the team so that everyo... 42
Part 2: Revealing the world 42
Chapter 5: From data to insight: Contextual Design Models. Just asking designers to go out in the field and run inquiries is a b... 42
Chapter 6: The Affinity Diagram. Any type of ethnographic or qualitative data is hard to organize. It’s complex and unstructured... 43
Chapter 7: Building Experience Models. Contextual Design 2.0 introduces a new set of models, the Experience Models, derived from... 43
Chapter 8: The Traditional Models. The Traditional Contextual Design Models introduced in the first edition of this book are sti... 43
Part 3: Reinventing life 44
Chapter 9: Inventing the next productconcept. More than ever, technology is inextricably integrated into daily life designer...
Chapter 10: From data to design—the Wall Walk. At the core of innovation is immersion in the world of the user. Having produced ... 44
Chapter 11: Ideation—Visioning and the Cool Drilldown. Good product design ensures that the life of the user is enhanced, enlive... 44
Part 4: Defining the product 45
Chapter 12: The challenge of product design. Products aren’t just standalone tools, particularly not in this day and age. Produc... 45
Chapter 13: Storyboards. Telling stories of how people will work in the new system we’re designing helps the team keep the user’... 45
Chapter 14: The User Environment Design. Storyboards ensure the tasks and the flow of life are coherent, but they don’t keep the... 45
Chapter 15: Interaction Patterns. The User Environment Design lays out the structure of the new system. It doesn’t define the lo... 46
Part 5: Making it real 46
Chapter 16: Making it real. In Contextual Design we drive product concept and structure from a deep understanding of the users’ ... 46
Chapter 17: Validating the design. Testing is an important part of any product’s development process, and it’s generally accepte... 47
Chapter 18: Prioritization and rollout. Your Contextual Design project will produce a larger design than you can build in one ve... 47
Chapter 19: Project planning and execution. Having described the techniques of Contextual Design, we step back to talk about how... 47
Chapter 20: Conclusion. In this brief concluding chapter of the book we return to the core principles of Contextual Design: imme... 48
2 - User Data Drives Design 50
The challenge of design data 51
You can’t just ask for design data 53
Deep insight comes from the field 56
Dealing with the data as a team 59
3 - Principles of Contextual Inquiry 62
The master/apprentice model 64
The four principles of Contextual Inquiry 68
Context 69
Summary data versus ongoing experience. People are taught from an early age to summarize. If you ask a friend about a movie she ... 70
Abstract versus concrete data. Humans love to abstract. It’s much easier to lump a dozen similar events together than to get all... 70
Experienced motives versus reports. Because researchers are with users in their real-life contexts, they can sense the user’s fe... 73
Partnership 74
Withdrawal and return. The example above illustrates the pattern of interaction in a Contextual Inquiry. The user is engrossed i... 76
Avoiding other relationship models. Adopting the attitudes and behaviors of the master/apprentice relationship model ensures the... 77
Interpretation 79
Share your interpretations. If the data that matters is your interpretation, you must make sure the interpretation is correct, a... 80
Listen for the “no”. An interviewer’s assumptions can easily be wrong, their interpretations may be wrong—and so their goal must... 82
Focus 83
Setting project focus. To move the team forward in a shared inquiry, the team needs a shared understanding of what the project i... 85
Focus reveals and conceals. If focus reveals detail within the area it covers, it tends to conceal other aspects of the user’s w... 86
The Contextual Interview structure 89
Starting: getting an overview 90
The transition 91
The Contextual Interview proper 91
Cool Concepts in the Contextual Interview 93
The wrap-up 94
Tailoring the interview 96
4 - The Interpretation Session 100
Building a shared understanding 101
The structure of an Interpretation Session 103
Who participates 104
Roles 105
The interviewer. The interviewer is the one who interviewed the user. They are the team’s informant, describing everything just ... 105
The recorder. The recorder keeps notes of the meeting online displayed, so everyone can see them using a monitor or projector. T... 107
Modelers. Modelers draw Contextual Design models on flip charts as they hear relevant data. When you start the project, decide w... 108
The moderator. The moderator is the stage manager for the whole meeting. Any meeting has a mainline conversation—the discussion ... 109
Participants. Every participant listens to the story of the interview, asks questions for understanding, and develops their own ... 110
Running the session 110
Working in teams 114
Use a cross-functional team 114
Structure design meetings for creativity 115
Pick a process and stick to it. Typical corporate methodologies for product development provide general outlines about what to d... 115
Know and articulate the purpose of themeeting. This is a simple meeting principle, but it’s at the center of any successful cr... 116
Assign roles, responsibilities, andarticulate expectations of participation. Depending on the purpose of the meeting, we defin... 117
Moderate and self-monitor. Any creative meeting can get off track. Sometimes, after we have taught clients how to run Contextual... 118
Have a space. “Working as a team” traditionally means breaking the design problem into small bits and assigning it to individual... 119
Manage interpersonal dynamics 120
Name behavior to raise awareness. A concept like “mainline conversation” is introduced to the team so they know what they are su... 121
Make sure people are heard. The single biggest complaint in design meetings is people feeling unheard. People who feel unheard e... 122
Provide a way to handle problem behaviors. Problem behaviors are rarely caused by people trying to make trouble. Usually, they a... 122
Keep people engaged. People can’t stand being bored or sitting around waiting for their turn to participate. If there is not eno... 123
Design a creative team culture 123
2 - Revealing the World 126
5 - From Data to Insight: Contextual Design Models 128
Models reveal what matters 129
Graphical representations give the big picture 134
Consolidation thinking: induction 136
Design communication: using data to drive design 141
Putting models into action 144
6 - The Affinity Diagram 146
Building the Affinity Diagram 148
Building the Affinity as a team 157
Design communication and the Affinity Diagram 162
7 - Building Experience Models 166
The Day-in-the-Life Model 168
Collecting the data in the field 168
Capturing during the Interpretation Session 173
Consolidating the Day-in-the-Life Model 174
Create the graphic framework. The first step in consolidation is to identity the best framework to use to collect individual dat... 178
Collect observations into the framework. Once you have a workable framework, start consolidating your individual data onto it. I... 178
Choose the message and the stories. Once you have collected the key observations, you have to decide what message you want to co... 179
Communication design. Using a variant of our Day-in-the-Life Model templates, tune it for your stories and framework. Remember, ... 180
Working in teams 185
The Identity Model 186
Collecting the data 189
Capturing during the Interpretation Session 191
Consolidating the Identity Model 194
Collect observation into potential identity elements. The job of consolidation is to find the aspects of self which go together ... 195
Name the identity element. Now the team must choose the names for the elements. Getting the name right is the hardest part. The ... 196
Put the elements in the background sections. Try different groupings of the identity elements to decide on how to place them the... 197
Communication design. Communication design of the graphic for the Identity Model is easy. Just put your elements and other parts... 198
Modeling Connection 200
The Relationship Model 202
Collecting the data 202
Capturing during the Interpretation Session 204
Consolidating the Relationship Model 204
The Collaboration Model 208
Collecting the data 208
Capturing during the Interpretation Session 210
Consolidating the Collaboration Model 211
Find the key collaboration activities and generate insight. Start by grouping your mini diagrams into the primary collaboration ... 211
Design a background representation. The main message will drive the graphic. Here are some approaches we have taken 213
Interaction-centered. The interaction-centered Collaboration Model may include a concept of role but sees the specific interact... 214
Story-based consolidation. Models show the structure of how things are done, how roles and interactions are organized, and strat... 216
: Once the team determines their message and approach, the right background structure will become clear—though it may well take ... 216
Sensation Boards 221
Collecting, interpreting, and using the data in the Affinity 221
Creating the Sensation Board 222
Conclusion 225
8 - Traditional Contextual Design Models 226
The Sequence Model 228
Collecting the data 229
Capturing during the interpretation session 230
Consolidating the data 232
Communication design 235
Decision Point Models 236
The Physical Model 240
Personas 244
Consolidating data for personas 246
The Power of Models 248
3 - Reinventing Life: Ideation with User Data 250
9 - Inventing the Next Product Concept 252
Practical innovation 254
User data drives innovation 260
People are part of the secret sauce 263
The challenge of design for life 266
A design process for invention 268
10 - The Bridge From Data to Design: The Wall Walk 272
Walking the Affinity 275
Making lists: creating a focus for creativity 278
Walking the Experience Models 281
Day-in-the-Life: fit technology with the place, time, and situations of life 282
Identity Model: enhance the expression of self 283
The Relationship Model: support real relationships 286
Collaboration Model: support the daily collaboration of work and life 288
Sensation Board: create sensual delight 289
Walking the Traditional Contextual Design Models 291
Sequence Models: improve the steps of a task 291
The Decision Point Model: supporting choices 293
The Physical Model: redesigning and learning from space 293
11 - Ideation: Visioning and the Cool Drilldown 296
Visioning 298
Creating a common direction through evaluation 304
Identifying product concepts 308
The Cool Drilldown 314
4 - Defining the Product 320
12 - The Challenge of Product Design 322
Keeping life coherent 324
Scenario versus structural reasoning 327
Design in teams 331
Separating conversations 331
Team size 333
13 - Storyboards 334
Building a storyboard 339
The storyboard review 344
14 - The User Environment Design 350
The User Environment Design elements 356
Building the User Environment Design from storyboards 362
The user interface and product structure 370
Seeing Product Structure 371
User Environment Design Walk-throughs 377
15 - Interaction Patterns 384
The right team 384
Seeing interaction patterns 387
Innovation and interaction patterns 397
Building interaction patterns from the user environment design 402
5 - Making It Real 408
16 - Making It Real 410
Validating with users 412
Driving design conversations with users 415
Contextual Design prototyping and other methods 419
Prototyping as a business technique 422
Product planning and strategy 424
Ship themes supporting an intent 427
Project planning and execution 429
17 - Validating the Design 434
Building a paper prototype 438
Running a prototype interview 442
The structure of an interview 447
Setup. Prototype interviews, like any Contextual Inquiry, need to be set up in advance so that everyone knows what to expect. Us... 447
Introduction. Start by introducing yourself and the focus of your design, including the kind of activities the design supports. ... 448
Transition. Once you’ve found a set of appropriate situations to recreate, choose one to start with and transition to the protot... 448
The interview. Once you have the prototype out and ready, move the user into interacting with it. If you’re reproducing a recent... 449
Wrap-up. The final wrap-up of a prototype interview starts with a simple summary of the key points that came up during the inter... 451
Going online. The first two rounds of prototyping should be in paper and in person, for all the reasons we listed above. But aft... 452
The Interpretation Session 454
Design iteration 456
Completing the design 458
18 - Prioritization and Rollout 462
Planning a series of releases 464
Partitioning a release for implementation 474
Driving concurrent implementation 478
19 - Project Planning and Execution 484
Forming the cross-functional team 485
Setting project scope 488
Setting project focus 491
Determine the interviewing situation 494
Deciding who to interview 497
Setting the interview focus 501
Planning the schedule 502
Managing the team 507
Cognitive style and working teams 509
20 - Conclusion 514
User-centered design. Everything we do starts with the user and ends with user validation. We form our understanding through fie... 514
Design for life. User data is a given, but core insight of the Cool Project was that design for life is not the same as design f... 515
Immersion. Hearing about the user is one thing understanding and embodying knowledge about the user at a gut level is another. ...
Take multiple perspectives on a problem. There’s rarely only one useful way to look at a problem and in Contextual Design we rar... 516
Design by humans. It’s a core principle of all our techniques that we have to work with the strengths and limitations of being h... 516
Design by teams. Techniques for managing teams are never an afterthought in Contextual Design. Every piece of the method has bee... 517
Externalize conversations. Every team conversation in Contextual Design has an externalized form. The discussion about implicati... 518
Name what you want to control. Throughout the process, one key technique for managing teams is to name the concepts we want team... 518
The user is the arbiter. We end this list of principles where we began: with the user. Throughout Contextual Design, we never fo... 519
Index 522
A 522
B 522
C 522
D 524
E 524
F 525
G 525
H 525
I 525
K 526
L 526
M 527
N 527
O 527
P 527
Q 528
R 528
S 528
T 529
U 529
V 530
W 530
Z 530