This method explores the user's work requirements for software, hardware and physical designs.  

Contextual Design founders Karen Holtzblatt and Hugh Beyer's method of interviewing users makes the most of traditional research methods while compensating for their weaknesses.   By engaging the user as an "expert" in their work, and taking the role of apprentice in sitting with them to learn their work process and habits, many of the biases built into traditional interviewing and ethnography are mitigated. 

Method

Contextual inquiries are distinguished from traditional interviews by their initial approach to the data collection process.  Traditional interviews begin after a script or discussion guide is written and approved by the client. These questions, by their design and sequence, lead the interviewee to discuss what matters to the client, not necessarily to the person being interviewed. To determine what issues truly affect the work experience, it is helpful to engage them in their context, where the little details emerge as important in guiding process and decision-making. Traditional interviews often take place after the work is conducted, sometimes in a location separate from the real work environment. Distancing the interviewee from their work both physically and temporally lifts their comments out of the details and into the realm of exception, generalization and abstraction.

Results

Contextual Inquiry results in scribbled notes of every kind, from taskflow to who they talk to when and how. The researcher's notes include a sketch or photograph of the user's office and desk layout. Examples of the artifacts of the user's work would include forms and other field-based paperwork that impacts what information is sent, when and to whom. In the team meeting that follows (usually within 24-48 hours from the end of the interview), notes are typed up to be sorted into thematic groups, upon completion of all interviews. Reading aloud the notes helps the whole team learn that user's process, while adapting those notes into work models. Here is an example of typed interpretation notes (.doc) that would result from such a team meeting.

Timeframe

Contextual inquiries with users can last between 1 and 2 hours, depending on the diversity and depth of effort to complete relevant tasks. 

Preparations

Determining the characteristics of the key user groups, finding representative users and scheduling time with them can take a week or two, depending on the difficulty of the project and availability of the user group(s).

Additional Reading

Learn more about Contextual Design from the founders' website, http://www.incent.com, or their book: Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt (1998), Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc. Amazon sells it.