At the end of the observation, you should always schedule an extra ten minutes to ask the user additional questions. If you’ve taken photos, they can make your findings easier to digest. This only serves to remind some of them that they could tidy up, and then they go and do it anyway. And then he takes a worn-out old felt-tip pen from his pocket to mark the fill level on his sophisticated device. Or it might be because they’re unsure, or because they want to get other people involved. If you know what you want to get out of it, you can set about structuring your visit to the user. Let people listening to your presentation write on Post-its, too – that makes them active listeners, and you’ll have your documentation ready at the end. Stop and initiate discussion when the user does something you don’t immediately understand or when you want to confirm an interpretation. Contextual inquiry, also known as site visits, or contextual interviewing, is a powerful method to ‘narrow the gap with reality’ when understanding, or making design decisions. This might be because they want to help you, thinking that they can’t answer all the questions. Review your notes and summarize what you took away from the interview by explaining your interpretation of the observed processes. Indicate what you hope to achieve during the interview and that you expect the participant to correct any misinterpretations you may develop as you learn. Before you blurt out your idea, spend a few days watching what users on the forum are talking about, and what the tone is like. It’s best if you then actually give the presentation to colleagues and stakeholders. Then, use the following 4-part structure as a template to guide your approach. This is a solid example of a good contextual inquiry report. These observations are surprising, and they are the reason why contextual inquiry is so worthwhile. You can see the Post-its on the monitor. NB: before your visit, tell the subjects that they don’t need to prepare. Often, the opposite occurs: the subject leads you into a wonderful empty conference room. After all, an interview in a conference room is exactly that: an interview, not participant observation. Making an audio recording of the conversation is an option, particularly if you’re alone and don’t have anyone taking notes. You will need a team of 2-3 people with a mix of roles: interviewer, note taker and camera person. Receive our UX tips (in English) directly to your inbox. Asking how long they’ve worked at the company, how they get along with colleagues or what training they have had comes across as very natural. A streamlined and effective alternative to creating a presentation is presenting the findings in a joint team workshop and using this to come up with the next steps. Shadowing . What I discovered is that there were several other steps involved that they hadn’t mentioned. Asking them in advance not to tidy up isn’t much use either: this only serves to remind some of them that they could tidy up, and then they go and do it anyway. Explain your interpretations of their tasks and workflow for the users to confirm or correct. And in the case of the fitness tracker, you can only use a usability test to improve the existing application. Observation is actually at the heart of it – you watch users while they do everyday tasks. However, users can easily talk about what they are doing and why when they are doing it. What did you learn? That’s why UX experts like this method so much: it lets us see what people really do, rather than being dependent on people remembering what they’ve done and correctly reporting it to us. If you don’t manage it, ask if you can at least see their workplace at the end. All three of the specialists I interviewed reported copying large batches of vehicle data from a spreadsheet and pasting it into a data table within the software interface. Despite this, it’s a great way to uncover usability issues. I don’t really like laptops for recording what’s going on. In my experience, the best time to give this explanation is when the subject is about to perform the first task. In our examples above, two hours would be enough for researching the process of kitchen buying and undertaking fitness research. Vor-Ort-Beobachtung. If complex processes are involved, it’s a good idea to take photos. ), it’s better to do that in advance – then you don’t need to take up time for this during the conversation in person. One last point on preparation: some subjects bring a colleague, co-worker or boss with them. How many friends do they communicate with during the event and why? In these situations, you may have to follow up with clarification questions at another time. That might annoy both them and the person you’re speaking to. on After each conversation, you decide whether the guide needs to be adapted. Workshop exercises for finding themes in qualitative data, such as affinity mapping, help the team align on patterns and themes. For this reason, it’s not especially useful for targeted design tasks such as redesigning an ecommerce product page or testing a newsletter signup form on a website. The important thing is that the terms participant observation, contextual inquiry, and on-site study or on-site observation usually mean the same thing. Sometimes the subjects will slip into an abstract mode, where they’ll say things like ‘then I’d click here’. In some of these situations, it still may be helpful to observe users go through these experiences to understand general behaviors, but you won’t likely need the added interview component and would mostly rely on direct observation. And finally, you say goodbye and thank them for their time. The results are usually qualitative, observed data, rather than quantitative, measured data. Collective impact case study ati video case study look and sound alike medications one page essay on badminton. Is there a clear answer across all the visits? The guide follows the workflow of the visit as I have depicted it in the following section. What the usability test is to ‘thinking out loud’, the contextual inquiry is to the ‘student-teacher principle’. Or do you need to use another research method such as diary studies or evaluating access numbers/analytics? kritischen Schritten befragt werden. Introduce yourself and take some time upfront to build rapport with your participant. The context enquiries are linked based on the definition defined in the STANDARD.SELECTION file. Of course, you can simply visit your users and have a chat with them. The others take notes and write all the interesting observations down on Post-its. 2020-12-06 You want to find out which new functions are the most promising for an existing fitness tracker and the accompanying app. And remember: for many participants, witnessing the development of an exciting new product is a real draw in itself. But it is feasible – perhaps if you want to develop an app allowing users to take photos and videos and write reviews and so on of parties, concerts and similar events. This sample interviewed different roles involved in the activity and also included a photo from data collection. Mit dem kontextuellen Interview soll Wissen über Nutzer bzw. Project Poster template for Confluence Server or Confluence Cloud, or in PDF form. As in usability tests, the effort involved in contextual inquiry is based first and foremost on how many subjects you have. Direct observation may also be the best field-research option if your participants cannot be interrupted or distracted while they work, such as doctors or flight traffic controllers. Contextual inquiry involves observing people in the i r natural context and asking them questions to fill in the gaps of your observation. 213: User Interface Design and Development Contextual Inquiry Professor: Tapan Parikh ([email protected]) TA: Eun Kyoung Choe ([email protected]) – A free PowerPoint PPT presentation (displayed as a Flash slide show) on PowerShow.com - id: 4f793d-MTBmM Contextual inquiry is no different. Ideally, two of you should attend the participant observation. Do you need to speak to other people? That’s why contextual inquiry is so valuable in these situations. The contextual-inquiry method was developed by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt as a way to resolve the drawbacks of other qualitative-research methodologies such as surveys and interviews. You can briefly touch on what you talked about in the warm-up. Ask about standard steps vs. extraneous or uncommon variations in their processes and the reasons behind them. If the subjects know in advance that you’re going to come to their workplace, almost all of them will tidy up first. Typically we conduct contextual inquiry during the early discovery stages for a new feature or product because this research data is so critical in shaping design choices such as requirements, personas, features, architecture, and content strategy. Salazar combines her background as a developer and education in Computer Science with her user experience expertise, particularly around complex applications, to bring well-rounded insights to her work. Feel free to use it (just remember to un-italicize and replace the bolded text!). When do they send each other WhatsApp or text messages? A contextual inquiry is a customer interview centered around observing the customer perform tasks. Outcome. Here's the template we use. Turn back to your research questions as a summary: write each one on a slide and put the answers in keywords below. So, you go running or cycling with a couple of sports enthusiasts. Using a notepad instead of a laptop lets you be more mobile, and the person you’re talking to feels less closely observed. However, strictly speaking, shadowing involves no interaction with the user. The argument ‘then let’s just ask the users!’ often crops up. One person leads the conversation, while the other stays in the background and takes notes. Three examples of worthwhile uses for a contextual inquiry: If you want to develop an app for music festivals, you should go to festivals with representative members of your target audience. But if you notice that some tasks were not understood or the user did not perform some tasks at all, you should avoid asking the next subjects the same questions. In the late 19th century, for instance, ethnologists made bows and arrows, went hunting and celebrated festivals with Native Americans. You will have time in the next phase, the wrapup, to discuss all your interpretations. For participant observation, conference rooms should always be an emergency solution, nothing more. If your target audience is very diverse, it’s worth your while recruiting many more subjects. Or if you’d like to know how users currently solve the problem your application aims to fix. The main section involves getting the user to demonstrate things as soon as possible. The time required for a contextual-inquiry session will depend on the scope context of the work you are intending to understand. You want to develop an app that music fans can use to find and contact each other at major rock concerts or outdoor music events. Die Anwender werden bei der Lösung von typischen Aufgaben beobachtet, zu … It is particularly effective in gathering (sometimes ‘hidden’) insight — through semi-structured interview and direct observation — about how people use a product or service, and why they ‘do what they do’. Similar tasks are performed in a diary study: in this case, you allow the user to record what they do in their day-to-day work by themselves. Nutzerfreundlichkeit). As well as usability tests, another highly effective method is available for directly observing users and their interaction with applications: participant observation, also known as contextual inquiry or sometimes also called on-site study. These should follow a logical sequence – for instance, if the subject needs to log into a system to perform a task, they should log in first, then demonstrate the next step. That’s a shame because you actually want to get to know their real day-to-day life. One of the greatest strengths of this methodology is that you get to see things you wouldn’t anticipate and uncover low-level details that have become habitual and invisible. What was noteworthy about your visit to this subject? Most subjects don’t mind if you snap one or two photos. The product designers apparently hadn’t provided a way for this information that’s so important to the subject to be presented in a more elegant way. Some colleagues also make a distinction between these methods and shadowing. I will ask questions throughout this process. If you have corresponding entry in F.CONTEXT.ENQUIRY then that will be displayed in the Enquiry … The basic idea behind the usability test and participant observation is the same: you watch real users doing what they actually do. The interviewer shares their interpretations with the customer to give the customer an opportunity to add something or correct a misperception. Some would like to have a colleague, co-worker or boss with them. Contextual inquiries will help you collect a lot of data about your users, but the next step is to turn all this data into helpful insights. That means that participant observation is not simply an interview. Or did the subjects take different approaches? Time 20 - 25 days. The worksheet design can be a simple word processing document with added … It’s important that you explain this technique to them well at the beginning. Copyright © 1998-2020 Nielsen Norman Group, All Rights Reserved. It’s even more efficient if you make ‘how might we’ notes instead of the observations. Try to replicate the work situation as authentically as possible with your subject. You want to observe everyday life, so having more than one subject can be quite disruptive. Jens is an experienced UX consultant for web and app projects. The best solution is to have a one-to-one chat before the event and mention that they shouldn’t prepare or tidy up and that you are interested in an authentic working environment. Which other forms of contact do they use? For example, if you see a photo of a dog at their workstation, you can ask about it. They were also crossreferencing a screen from another software tool to fetch several missing pieces of correlating information that needed to be input for each vehicle. You don’t need to tell them that they also need it to help them remember as much as they can correctly. Unlike in usability tests, I don’t read the questions out in the contextual inquiry. Contextual inquiry case study rating. You should explain the principle a bit like this: imagine I am your student and you are my teacher. Contextual inquiry is reminiscent of anthropological research, and relies heavily on participant observation. In this declaration, you should provide any necessary information about data protection in accordance with the GDPR (for EU citizens), making it clear to the subject that the recording is only for evaluation purposes and will not be disclosed to anyone. Of the many tools user experience researchers use, contextual inquiry is often one of the least known. Get all the fields defined in standard selection for your application. Take these photos, put them in a (PowerPoint) presentation and write a few key points next to each one. It’s obvious that you must never endanger your own health or that of the subject. In this type of workshop, you use the information you recorded as a reminder and report back to the team about the individual visits. However, for the festival visit, you would need to invest a day for each subject – although that’s certainly an event where there’d be no shortage of fun involved for you, too. This method is the best way of finding out what’s going on in the subject’s head and how they work. So, for instance, if you’re observing the use of a large machine that three people always work on together, there should also be three people present during your participant observation. You will often experience things you haven’t expected. If you do, the user may carry on in interview mode. You watch how they research online and how they measure up their kitchen. The problem is that practically nobody reads them. In a contextual interview, you watch and listen as the user works. That’s why it makes sense to visit trade fairs, conferences or other events that appeal to your target audience or to get in touch with them online on forums and user groups. This prevents you and the subject from getting your wires crossed, and it puts the subject in a slightly more natural situation. Although the participant observation method is a little more time-consuming, it’s very worthwhile. It also lets you develop questions from the findings which are as specific as possible and will help you continue to develop the product. You find out whether the person sits alone in the office. If I’m looking to create a more efficient point of sale system for grocery stores, I would observe someone using an existing point of sale system, taking notes on what works and what doesn’t work. Best Regards Inquiry Letter Sample for a service . You’re not conducting an interview. Summary: Through observation and collaborative interpretation, contextual inquiry uncovers hidden insights about customer’s work that may not be available through other research methods. The researcher silently observes the user at work in his or her natural work environment and notes any tools and people that support the user as they work toward task goals. 5-5 stars based on 174 reviews Gre essay review service, pros and cons of free college essay my aim in life essay 10 lines. Ziele. Discuss confidentiality and get approval for any filming or recording you may be doing. There is lots of information about how to set-up and run … This phase usually goes through multiple iterations of the following 2-step pattern: The interview will begin to take on a rhythm of its own with periods of work and periods of discussion throughout. Though apprenticeship is less common today than it used to be, people are still fairly familiar with the idea and able to draw inspiration from it. Student example 1 . The participant observation method comes from ethnology. Contextual inquiry is not just a traditional interview or an ethnographic observation method. Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation. This is your users’ chance to give final clarifications and correct your understanding. AEIOU provides a template for observing contextual inquiries and collecting qualitative data. Ask for a summary of the work to be done during the time allotted and ask for any relevant opinions. If you work with a recruitment expert like TestingTime, your colleagues there ensure that the subjects are well-briefed. Contextual inquiry is literally inquiry of context. You might you have your own products that you can give them. Contextual inquiries are the ideal solution for products that cannot be easily transferred to a lab (e.g., an integrated display of an industrial robot). They were either not aware or did not trust that the data was saved. All you need to do is write down key points and perhaps formulate the tasks. This may happen whether or not you’ve made it clear in advance that you want to conduct the conversation in their workplace. Try to understand underlying processes: You should initiate discussion for 2 reasons: For example, if a user has two separate monitors and moves different windows from one to another, you may first ask the user to explain why she’s doing that. They will often want to know what you’re going to ask. Ideally, you should come up with three to six tasks for the user to show you. Maximum one email per week. Letztendlich ist Contextual Inquiry zwar: zeitaufwendig (in Erhebung und Auswertung), anspruchsvoll für den Beobachter, bietet aber in vielen Fällen sehr große Vorteile, wie: das Erfassen von Tacit Knowledge, detaillierte Beobachtung aller Nutzungsschritte, das Einbeziehen aller kontextuellen Faktoren. Notes are long and unstructured, and if you’ve visited five or more subjects, it also takes far too long to read all of them. Instead, I say them in my own words. The student-teacher principle comes in handy here again: let one person explain each step to you. This is all important information for us as user researchers. In this guide, you will learn how to determine the criteria for selecting a user recruitment agency and how to minimize the risk of choosing the wrong one for your specific needs. For more on this method, see Diary studies: a practical guide. First, I interviewed several specialists about how they entered vehicle data for entire fleets of commercial vehicles into the software. So you go with a couple of music fans to the next outdoor event. These types of interfaces are fairly straightforward: they don’t typically require in-depth thought processes or an underlying body of knowledge that UX professionals must understand in order to design them. Instead, you visit people at home or their workplace and talk to them. It’s true that this is much better than coming up with new ideas just based on your gut feeling. Manche Kollegen unterscheiden davon noch das Shadowing. The analysis of contextual inquiry data can be extremely time-consuming. Instead, you should try to get the subject to supply the right equipment for both of you. If you don’t manage it, you might need to break off the observation. The tapping of the keys interrupts the conversation and you seem a bit more formal than if you’re only working with a pen and paper. Almost all subjects are self-conscious about them, and evaluating video is also very time-consuming. Contextual inquiry is a type of ethnographic field study that involves in-depth observation and interviews of a small sample of users to gain a robust understanding of work practices and behaviors. All you need to do is bring along a declaration of consent for them to sign. 213: User Interface Design and Development Contextual Inquiry Lecture #3 - January 27th, 2009 Today s Outline Introduction to CI Principles of CI Work Models ... – A free PowerPoint PPT presentation (displayed as a Flash slide show) on PowerShow.com - id: 3c42be-ZTM3N ’ t mind if you really want to observe everyday life, so you can at least five subjects spend. The researcher situations, you go with them you must never endanger your own health or that of the is... 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