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contextual design
``` [Two messages from Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt, who wrote a great book called "Contextual Design" that translates ethnographic and participatory design methods into a very American form that can be taught step-by-step.]
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Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 11:26:52 -0700
From: "Hugh R. Beyer"
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Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems
Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt
If necessity is the mother of invention, then if you don't know what the users need you can't invent. Karen and Hugh present a step-by-step way to uncover, understand, and use those needs. If developers are not already using techniques like those presented here, they should read this book carefully to see what they are missing.
--Dan Bricklin co-creator of VisiCalc
This book introduces a customer-centered approach to business by showing how data gathered from people while they work can drive the definition of a product or process while supporting the needs of teams and their organizations. This is a practical, hands-on guide for anyone trying to design systems that reflect the way customers want to do their work. The authors developed Contextual Design, the method discussed here, through their work with teams struggling to design products and internal systems. In this book, you'll find the underlying principles of the method and how to apply them to different problems, constraints, and organizational situations.
Contextual Design enables you to gather detailed data about how people work and use systems develop a coherent picture of a whole customer population generate systems designs from a knowledge of customer work diagram a set of existing systems, showing their relationships, inconsistencies, redundancies, and omissions
Authors:
Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt are co-founders of InContext Enterprises, Inc., a firm that works with companies coaching teams to design products, product strategies, and information systems from customer data. Karen Holtzblatt developed the Contextual Inquiry field data gathering technique that forms the core of Contextual Design and is now taught and used world-wide. Hugh Beyer has pioneered the link between the customer- centered front end and object-oriented design. The authors can be reached at beyer@acm.org or through their web site, http://www.incent.com/
An excerpt from chapter 9:
"Building up a sense of the market instance by instance works against a real shift in perspective. It works against the creative leap that might produce a next-generation product or radical business process improvement. When faced with one new piece of customer data, people assimilate it-they modify their entering conceptions just enough to account for the new piece of data. They say, "Look-we can handle that with just a small fix over here." A creative leap comes not from such small adjustments but from seeing the large cumulative effect of lots of little pieces, which forces designers to abandon existing assumptions and come to the data from a fresh perspective. In Contextual Design, instead of looking at each piece of data individually and assimilating it, we combine all the data together so it has the maximum impact. We do it fast-a day for each model and a day for the affinity. Doing it slowly would encourage assimilation; doing it fast swamps our old paradigm with new data. Doing it slowly would encourage point solutions to each problem in turn; doing it fast encourages broad, systemic responses to the whole work practice of the whole customer population. The consolidated models and affinity become the statement of the customer which forces us out of our rut."
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Gathering Customer Data Chapter 3 Principles of Contextual Inquiry Chapter 4 Contextual Inquiry in Practice Chapter 5 A Language of Work Chapter 6 Work Models Chapter 7 The Interpretation Session Chapter 8 Consolidation Chapter 9 Creating One View of the Customer Chapter 10 Communicating to the Organization Chapter 11 Work Redesign Chapter 12 Using Data to Drive Design Chapter 13 Design from Data Chapter 14 System Design Chapter 15 The User Environment Design Chapter 16 Project Planning and Strategy Chapter 17 Prototyping as a Design Tool Chapter 18 From Structure to User Interface Chapter 19 Iterating with a Prototype Chapter 20 Putting It into Practice
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 97 11:29:40 +0100
From: PContext
Friends:
We'll be teaching our "Understanding your Customer" course covering Contextual Inquiry and work modeling again this November. In this course, you'll learn to interview customers, capture important aspects of their work, build one view of your whole customer population, and drive system design from this customer data.
This is your chance to learn the basics of Contextual Inquiry and Design. Don't miss it!
November 5-6, 1997 San Jose, California
This course covers:- How to discover how people really work * - talk to customers in their work place while they work* - set up interviews with the right customers* - get the best data even if you aren't a professional interviewer* - discover the needs the customer won't think to tell you - share the data with the rest of the team * How to model your customer's work * - find the hidden aspects of work that make products succeed or fail* - identify the roles people play to get the job done* - understand how the customer's culture affects product design* - identify individual steps and motiva- tions of tasks your product will support* - see how the structure of the physical site affects what you have to make* - analyze the artifacts people use to get their work done How to get ONE picture of the customer population * - represent the current work practice of your internal client or external market* - see the full scope of the customer's issues in your product domain* - see past individual differences to recognize common work patterns* - see work's natural structure and how your product can transform it How to create the right system for the customer * - use grounded brainstorming to base designs in reality - identify key problems you can fix - find opportunities you can invent for* - find ideas and improvements you can useVisit our web site at http://www.incent.com/ for more information about this course and InContext Enterprises.
Who Should Attend: Product Managers and Marketers, Developers, Business Analysts, User Interface Designers, Usability Experts involved in product identification, design, development or marketing.
Seminar Fee: The Seminar fee includes: seminar attendance, seminar materials and continental breakfast and lunch. The fee is $695 per person for registrations received before October 10, 1997; $745 for registrations received after that date.
Please Note: Early registration is encouraged. Registrations will be accepted on a space-available basis.
Registration: Please fill out the form below. Alternatively, call 1-888- 892-0800 or send e-mail to karen@acm.org with your registration information, or register from our web site: http://www.incent.com/ .
> Please register me immediately. Cost is $745 per person.
> Sorry, I can't come but want more information about customer-centered design.
Name ____________________________________
Organization ____________________________________
Title ____________________________________
Street, Suite ____________________________________
City, State, Zip ____________________________________
Telephone ____________________________________ (with area code)
Fax ____________________________________ (with area code)
Email ____________________________________
Pay by check or send us e-mail and we'll call you to get your credit card information.
Method of Payment:- Check Enclosed o MasterCard o VISA o Amex
(Checks must be made payable to InContext Enterprises. Print participant name on check.)
Mail, fax, or email the completed registration form to
Mail: InContext Enterprises 249 Ayer Road, Suite 301 Harvard, MA 01451
Fax: 978-772-6907
Email: beyer@acm.org
Tel: 888-892-0800
Seminar Location: The seminar will be held at the Radisson Plaza Hotel San Jose Airport, located at 1471 North 4th Street, San Jose, CA.
Accommodations: Radisson Plaza Hotel San Jose Airport. Call 1-800-333-3333 or 408-452-0200 and mention InContext Enterprises for special room rate availability.
Substitution and Cancellation Policy If you are unable to attend, a substitution may be made at any time without charge. Refunds, less a $100 administrative fee, will be issued on request for all cancellations except those postmarked or faxed after October 17, 1997, for which a 50% refund will be given. Substitution and cancellation requests must be made in writing. "No shows" are subject to the full fee. The seminar fee will be fully refunded in the unlikely event the seminar is canceled, but InContext Enterprises cannot be held responsible for costs that may be incurred for airline and hotel reservations and other expenses.
Karen Holtzblatt and Hugh Beyer, InContext Enterprises' founders, are pioneers in customer-centered design. From idea to implementation, their approach grounds the design process concretely in the actual way customers work. They coach teams for major companies in the industry to design systems, develop long-term strategies, and help organizations adopt customer-centered design as standard practice.
Karen Holtzblatt is the originator of Contextual Inquiry, the field research technique adopted by many companies in the high-tech industry. She has over 10 years of computer industry product and process design experience. Karen has led teams in using customer-centered techniques to design software, hardware, business processes and product strategies. She is on the advisory board for Communications of the ACM.
Hugh Beyer is a leader in developing methods to drive systems design and object-oriented techniques from a firm foundation in customer data. He has worked in the industry as engineer, designer and system architect for over 15 years. Hugh was responsible for the design and delivery of leading repository and CASE products using object-oriented technology.
For more information about Karen and Hugh visit InContext Enterprises' web site at: http://www.incent.com/ ```
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