1 L545 Systems Analysis & Design Week 3: September 16, 2008

SLIS S556 2 Announcement Problem Definitions will be posted on Oncourse (Forum) for potential group projects Add your profile in Oncourse

SLIS S556 3 The Core Premise of Contextual Inquiry Go where the user works, observe the user as he or she works, and talk to the user about the work

SLIS S Principles of Contextual Inquiry Context Partnership Interpretation Focus

SLIS S Principles of Contextual Inquiry: Context Go to the customer’s workplace and see the work as it unfolds  Summary vs. ongoing experience (see HWW, p. 96—dos & don’ts)  Abstract vs. concrete data (ask for specific instances; use the real artifacts)  Observe the work practice

SLIS S Principles of Contextual Inquiry: Partnership Collaborate with the user on understanding his work Users are experts; we (analysts) provide tools to analyze the work situation Get feedback on design ideas Goals: articulating work structure & revising design ideas

SLIS S Principles of Contextual Inquiry: Interpretation We need to verify our interpretations with users FactHypothesisDesign

SLIS S556 8 Example of Possible Interpretations What’s your interpretation for the following observation?  A user of an accounting package kept a list of account names and account #s next to her screen

SLIS S Principles of Contextual Inquiry: Focus What aspects of work matter and what don’t Project focus gives the team a shared starting point How to expand focus  Surprises and contradictions  Nods  What you don’t know Admit your ignorance You are there to learn (the master/apprenticeship model)

SLIS S Pitfall for Design “The success rate is only 20% when technical engineers design what they think other people want” says the Intel’s chairman, Andrew S. Grove (Takahashi, 1998) Takahashi, D. (1998). Doing fieldwork in the high-tech jungle. Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, October 28.

SLIS S Success for Design What can we learn from Toyota’s design strategies described in Gertner (2007)? Cf., using ethnography in contextual design (Simonsen & Kensing, 1997).

SLIS S Design Ethnographer A social scientist who works for a technology company and studies user environments to suggest product improvements. [source]source Design ethnographer at  IBM & Intel IBMIntel  Mc0S1TU Mc0S1TU

SLIS S Contextual Interview Structure: 4 steps Conventional interview (introduction)  Introduce yourself, get to know each other as people  Get opinions about the tools, and an overview of the job and the work (summary data) Transition (set the rules)

SLIS S Contextual Interview Structure: 4 steps Contextual interview proper  The customer do her work task  You (the apprentice) observe, ask Qs, suggest interpretations of behaviors  Be nosy  Follow the user around  Remember: context, partnership, interpretation, & focus Wrap-up  Summarize what you learned  User’s last chance to correct and elaborate on your understanding

15 Interviews

SLIS S Example of an Interview OvQIGDg4I&feature=related OvQIGDg4I&feature=related

SLIS S Designing the Interviewing Situation Normal task … is easy What about others?  Intermittent task  Uninterruptible task  Extremely long task (e.g., years)  Extremely focused task  Internal mental task

SLIS S Who to Interview—how many? 1-2 people in each role you identified as important to the focus Collect data from 5-15 people in all

SLIS S Who to Interview? (HWW, p ) Diversity is an important aspect: look for  cultural differences  different physical situations (e.g., single- location vs. distributed locations)  differences of scale (a small business vs. a large corporation)

SLIS S Group Activity Role play for Builders, PMgers, Architects, & User Reps Do not share the write-ups Meet together for the assigned role Then, form a design team Debrief

SLIS S Group Activity

SLIS S Group Activity PMArchitectBuilderUser Reps A B C D E