CHI 97 Electronic Publications: Special Interest Groups (SIGs)

CHI 97 Electronic Publications: Special Interest Groups (SIGs)

Contextual Techniques: Seeing Design Implications in Data

Karen Holtzblatt
InContext Enterprises, Inc.
249 Ayer Rd. Suite 301
Harvard, MA 01451 USA

+1 508 772 0001
karen@acm.org

Hugh R. Beyer
InContext Enterprises, Inc.
249 Ayer Rd. Suite 301
Harvard, MA 01451 USA

+1 508 772 0001
beyer@acm.org

Keywords

analysis methods, design techniques, customer-centered design, ethnography, usability engineering, team design, domain analysis, work modeling, software engineering, task analysis, user models, user studies, work analysis

Keywords
Introduction
Content

Introduction

Contextual techniques are used to collect in-depth information on how people work. Through these techniques engineering teams collect the knowledge they need to design products that fit their users well. However, going from customer data to design is not trivial; designers have to know how to look at the data and how to see implications for design out of it. The difference between a small tweak to an existing system and the invention of a whole new approach to a problem domain often lies in how good the designers were at recognizing what their customer data was telling them.

In this SIG, we will discuss, share, and practice seeing design implications in customer data. We will practice seeing how different kinds of data might inform design and learn from each other how to see design implications.

Content

The key hurdle for a design team, after it has collected customer data, is to see what to do next-using the data to develop insight into the customer, to see overarching issues which the team might address, to invent features and product directions which respond to the issues, and to tailor the design of the resulting system to fit the detailed work structure of their customers.

Though this process is seldom taught explicitly, it does have structure which can be revealed and discussed. We frame the discussion by talking about the creative process and how it depends on data, and lay open the chain of reasoning that results in a designer sitting up and saying, "We should do this!"

The session uses some presentation to frame the issue, but moves quickly to interactive group discussion and practice. We provide customer data and an example design problem as the stimulus for the session. Participants respond to the data by sharing their insights, ideas, and design inventions. Through this discussion we show how invention works in practice: how people see the implications of data, apply it to a specific problem, and invent a specific design.

We discuss the different directions participants chose to take the data, showing how different perspectives emphasized different aspects of the data and resulted in different designs. We test the resulting ideas against the customer data and discuss how the data also tests designs for relevance and fit with what the customers really want.

This session is appropriate for anyone who has tried to bring customer data into a design team. Participants should expect a lot of discussion around the data and design, and around the process of seeing designs in data.

CHI 97 Electronic Publications: Special Interest Groups (SIGs)