Contextual design: an emergent view of system design

Abstract

We offer an introduction to contextual design as an emergent method for building effective systems. Contextual design addresses a number of the inadequacies in previous methods by emphasizing: interview methods conducted in the context of the user's work, codesigning with the user, building an understanding of work in context, and summarizing conclusions through out the research. We contrast this design method to usability engineering and artifact examination.