Contextual Design Observations Professor Michael Terry September 29, 2009
Today s Agenda Announcements Questions? Finishing interviewing Contextual Design Observations Coding CS489 CS689 / 2
Announcements Thursday: Consent agreements Get your consent forms signed now! Schedule interviews and observations ASAP First poster session is next week October 8th, 2009 in DC Fish Bowl I will be away October 6 th Matthew Kay giving lecture CS489 CS689 / 3
Project Groups Problems / issues? Everyone have consent agreements being signed? Everyone have interviews scheduled? Anyone done an interview yet? CS489 CS689 / 4
Questions? CS489 CS689 / 5
What people see and talk about is constrained by their entering focus by what they have concepts for. If they have no concepts for work, they will talk about things familiar to them: the technology they can use to build the system, its internal structure, and its user interface. (From Contextual Design, p. 81) CS489 CS689 / 6
Any system imposes a model of work. The only choice designers have is whether they will design that work model explicitly to support the user or whether they will allow it to be the accidental result of the technical decisions they make. (Contextual Design) CS489 CS689 / 7
Your Goal Learn what people need to do and how they do it Identify unmet needs Explore ways to improve their work Design and evaluate new tools to support their work How do you get there? You need a methodology CS489 CS689 / 8
Contextual Design Came out of post-doctoral work by Karen Holtzblatt in late 1980 s Resulted in Contextual Inquiry Together with Hugh Beyer, developed Contextual Design CS489 CS689 / 9
Contextual Design A methodology to successfully redesign work practices A set of methods and models to scaffold the process of going from a superficial, tacit understanding of users, their needs, and culture of practice to a highly detailed, concrete, tangible model of these same elements Work is invisible! Why? CS489 CS689 / 10
Invisibility of Work Work is a process that involves people, tools, actions, expectations, constraints, culture Not visible unless you make it so Plus People cannot always articulate how they accomplish their work on a day-to-day basis Makes work even less visible! Contextual Design is a collection of techniques and tools to convert the tacit to the tangible Heavy emphasis on qualitative methods CS489 CS689 / 11
Contextual Design Overview Understand customer needs Interviews, observations Work modeling Provide concrete representation of work practices Consolidation Consolidate findings across users to produce single picture of representative users Work redesign Invent new ways of doing work Mock-up designs and test with customers CS489 CS689 / 12
Why Contextual Design? Contextual Design is not the only HCI methodology Participatory design Task analysis Soft systems methodology And many more Contextual Design is highly representative Once you understand its methods and rationale, other approaches are easily assimilated CS489 CS689 / 13
Initial Stages of Contextual Design Collect data (our facts ) Code (label) / model the data Interpret the labels and models Quantify what you observe Validate Assess and prioritize Then design CS489 CS689 / 14
Stage: Data Collection To improve workflow, need to know what is currently wrong or lacking in a system Can find out what is lacking by collecting data Want designs to be informed by real needs, not by ad-hoc hunches and guesses Data can be interviews, observations, collected samples, logs, questionnaires CS489 CS689 / 15
Stage: Labeling and Modeling Can have hours of interviews, video This is a good problem to have! But needs to be managed Qualitative data needs to be transformed from rich, fluid, seamless reality to systematically defined, categorized data Labels and models of data assist in this transformation CS489 CS689 / 16
Stage: Interpretation Labels and models of phenomena must be interpreted to find meaning What does that action really mean? What does it accomplish? Why did she choose to do that, then? CS489 CS689 / 17
Stage: Quantifying Labels and models lend themselves to quantification Enable counting and measuring How many times did they choose Save As? How long did it take them to choose command parameters? How often did they need to refer to physical materials when typing the report? CS489 CS689 / 18
Stage: Validation Interpretations are best guesses of what is going on Interpretations must be validated by users Did we understand this activity correctly? CS489 CS689 / 19
Stage: Assess and Prioritize Will identify more problems and opportunities than have time to address Based on the needs of project, which phenomena deserve the most attention? CS489 CS689 / 20
Stage: Design From the validated interpretations and assessments, grounded design ideas emerge CS489 CS689 / 21
Today: Coding and Interpretation How to code How to interpret Identifying workarounds Benefits of coding CS489 CS689 / 22
It is not enough only to observe and bring back observations. Interpretation is the assignment of meaning to the observation what it implies about work structure and about possible supporting systems Designs are built on the interpretation of facts, on what the designers claim the facts mean. (From Contextual Design) CS489 CS689 / 23
Interpretation is the chain of reasoning that turns a fact into an action relevant to the designer s intent. From the fact, the observable event, the designer makes a hypothesis, an initial interpretation about what the fact means or the intent behind the fact. This hypothesis has an implication for the design, which can be realized as a particular design idea for the system. (From Contextual Design) CS489 CS689 / 24
From Data to Interpretation Interviews, walkthroughs, and videotaped observations give you your data Next, need to be able to label and interpret the data Act of labeling and interpreting is called coding CS489 CS689 / 25
Coding Coding is process of developing, defining, and applying labels to the actions, phenomena, activities in your collected data An emergent process The codes emerge from systematic data analysis Coding scheme is the list of labels and their properties Coding helps crack the nut of work Moves us beyond a surface understanding of work to a detailed, critical examination of work CS489 CS689 / 26
Coding Process Examine everything in minute detail to find unique, standalone phenomena Label and define those phenomena Apply labels to the data Over time, filter, aggregate, separate labels into higherlevel categories and subcategories Categories will serve to group and differentiate activities of your users CS489 CS689 / 27
How to Code Label everything that makes sense Labels can be words or pictorially-based Words, phrases Annotated visualizations, diagrams, and models Anything that helps you discriminate between phenomena CS489 CS689 / 28
Coding Examples Example labels from a desktop app Mouse click (low-level label) Command selection (higher level label) Experimentation (higher level label) Examples with sketches Sketch of physical environment showing where materials flow throughout environment Sketch of physical artifact and how it is manipulated Include time codes, durations, frequency counts as necessary CS489 CS689 / 29
Demo Watch and take notes CS489 CS689 / 30
Demo Now let s label Say Stop when you see something to label (We ll write labels on board) CS489 CS689 / 31
From Labeling to Interpretation As we label, we want to start interpreting We want to not only identify phenomena, we want to be able to ascribe meaning to those phenomena CS489 CS689 / 32
Interpretation Ask Who? What? Why? Where? How? With what? How long? How much work? With whom? With what results? How much effort? CS489 CS689 / 33
Interpretation Interpretation helps us identify likely candidates for improvement Also helps us identify workarounds and inefficiencies in workflow CS489 CS689 / 34
Workarounds A workaround is any augmentation of a tool or process that is not officially supported by the tool or process but which helps get work done Some are obvious, others are much more subtle The notes on debit card terminals to tell you how to align the card to swipe it Using a box to align text Undo-redo flashes in Photoshop CS489 CS689 / 35
Interpretation Demo CS489 CS689 / 36
Benefits of Coding Give us a single term to describe what may be a complex, sophisticated, involved phenomenon Provides a verbal and mental shorthand Makes it easier to communicate to others Allows us to group similar phenomena, objects, actions Also allow us to differentiate CS489 CS689 / 37
Benefits of Coding Process Transforms us from mere viewers to analytical observers We start observing with an eye for meaning Helps us understand work practices at a much deeper level Reveals workarounds and habits people forget they had The little things that compensate for tool deficiencies so that people can get the job done Leads to quantification of the phenomena Frequency, duration, expended effort CS489 CS689 / 38
Remember People have tools to do their work, but they never perfectly fit with their needs They can always be improved Collected data and interpretations will speak to you Suggest new areas of concern not addressed by current technology Suggest ways to improve and increment existing systems CS489 CS689 / 39