CONTEXTUAL INQUIRY
QUALITATIVE | INNOVATIVE | EXPLORATORY | OBSERVATIONAL
Contextual Inquiry is the method that helps researchers to study and understand the need of the subject by immersive involved in subject’s real working and living context by inquiries and observations.
01 Definition
Contextual inquiry is an immersive, contextual method of observing and interviewing that reveals underlying (and invisible) work structure.
---- Universal Methods of Design
Contextual inquiry (CI) is a user-centered design (UCD) ethnographic research method, part of the Contextual Design methodology. A contextual inquiry interview is usually structured as an approximately two-hour, one-on-one interaction in which the researcher watches the user do their normal activities and discusses what they see with the user.
---- Wikipedia
02 NATURES
Notes:
- Compared with ethnography, contextual inquiry has focused topics.
- It is short-term, staying in selected site and subjects.
- Who is the subject? day-to-day users, not past/not future.
- How many people should involved? 4-6 is a good number.
- Avoid asking obvious question, which will interrupt them too much.
- Researchers could lead moving conversation from general questions to specific questions.
Suited Context:
- Have a long term time span: it need time to build up trust between researchers and subjects. Also, it takes time to study people in their natural settings from comprehensive aspects.
03 PROCEDURES
- Define problem space and the goal of the inquiry.
- Find the subject who is the everyday user of the product.
- Introduce the session and build up trust with the subject
- Set up audio/video recording devices.
- Ask general questions about the subject’s demographics, job and what task he/she is going to do.
- Observe and take notes about what the subject is doing, how they are doing it, what tool they use, and how they organize the information elements.
- Focus on on-going experience and dig deep with specific questions
- Immediate reflection on the field notes.
- Transcribe and summarize insights. Elaborate on the following: Mental model, Tools, Terminology, Methods, Goals and Value system.
04 REFLECTION
Limitation
- Contextual inquiry could reflect user's problem they met, but it does not provide a whole picture of user group. Quantitive research is still necessary to be conducted.
Strengths:
- Based on context, which helps understanding users.
- Very focused, researchers could dig deep with relevant inquiries.
- Subjects have more power within the session, they would feel more comfortable to share their experience and express their viewpoints.
05 Case Document
