# Presentation: 134386

## Using Context to Inform Design

- Nicholas Johnson
- njohnson@ers.usda.gov
- USDA’s Economic Research Service

## Outline

- Introduction
- What context is
- Why context matters
- How contextual analysis helps
- How to perform contextual analysis
- How to use contextual analysis
- Examples from ERS

## Our imaginary user

**Notes:**
Often we view our users as being in a vacuum.  

Here is Adam using your website. He comes to your website, does what he needs without any problems, and leaves.

However, it is much more complex.
No system and no user exists in a vacuum.

We are bound by: rules, regulations, politics, other technologies, business processes, time constraints, etc.

## A more realistic scenario

- No user exists in a vacuum
- No system exists in a vacuum

**Notes:**
Here is Adam in the real-world trying to display your website at a meeting with his coworkers.

* He’s in a meeting trying to bring up your web page.
* He is under time constraints
* He doesn’t have his bookmarks on this machine.
* He has to login and forgot his password.
* The form he needs is in his briefcase.
* Acrobat isn’t installed on the conference room computer.
* He wants to print it out, but the black and white printer is not showing the graph well.

## What context is

- The environment in which a “system” will exist.
- The environment includes many factors.
- The environment and the system are interrelated – they both affect one another.

**Politics**

**Human**
**behavior**

**Rules and **
**regulations **

**Business**
**processes**

**Technical **
**environment**

**Agency**
**culture**

_*Example contextual parameters *_

**Other tools used**

**User**
**workspace**

- System

**Notes:**
Define system as anything we may want to build.  Web page, software application, hardware, paper forms, government program.

Common definitions:
*  “The interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs.” –Webster
*  “Everything other than the content of a piece of work.” –Wikipedia

## Why context matters

*“****Any system imposes a model of work.****  The only choice designers have is whether they will design that work model explicitly to support the user or whether they will allow the work model to be the accidental result of the technical decisions they make.”* –Beyer and Holtzblatt
- A successful design creates a successful model of work.

**Notes:**
* For example, Adam, using the system in the meeting failed, because the system designers assumed he would work from his desk
* It therefore imposed a faulty model of work on him.

## How contextual analysis helps

- Making a successful model of work requires understanding and leveraging the system’s context:
-   User’s “mental model” of the task
-   Task inputs and outputs
-   Human cognitive limitations
-   Other tools and resources used
-   User workspace
-   Etc.
- This understanding comes from contextual analysis, analyzing the context of the system.

**A thorough contextual analysis will:**
-   challenge previous assumptions
-   provide key insights

**Contextual analysis is most important when designing systems that: **
-   support complex tasks
-   redesign existing work

**Notes:**
A successful model of work does not happen by accident.  It requires understanding the context of the system.

Contextual analysis is surveying the landscape.  How can you build a building without an accurate survey of the land?

Contextual factors are important to all parts of system development from:
 - requirements definition
 - to the technical build

Today I will focus on interface design.

( Understanding contextual elements is necessary to make informed decisions about the system during:
Requirements definition   (politics, culture, rules...)
Interface design   (human limitations, workflows...)
Technical build  (technical environment, protocols...)
)

## How to perform contextual analysis

- Recruit participants who use or may use the system.
- Assume an apprentice-master relationship with your user.
- Your goal is to learn all the details of how the user does some task.
- Go to the user’s worksite if possible.
- Context is necessary for both the master and apprentice to communicate.
- A thorough contextual analysis will capture as many details as possible about how the task is really done:
**User’s “mental model” of the task**: what, why, how
**Sequence and timing of events**
**Inputs into the task**: data, triggers, authorizations
**Outputs from the task**: data, format, events
**Existing difficulties faced**
**Workarounds to challenges, if any**
**Other tools used **
**User workspace**
**Any other factor that affects the task**

**Notes:**
Must see context to leverage it.

Many methods to understand context, but I will only touch on a couple

(Task analysis, artifact analysis, contextual interview, cognitive principles, 

Get copies of artifacts.  Have user print screenshots.  Take pictures if you like.

## How to use the contextual analysis

- Summarize your findings:
- All relevant details of the context
- Note insights and assumptions challenged
- Act on your findings.  Use findings to create/revise:
**Requirements:** user goals, system features, usage scenarios
**Design prototypes**
- If possible, iterate by validating in context.

**Notes:**
Once you see and understand the context of the system you are designing, leveraging it in a design is comparably simple.

A thorough contextual analysis will:
- challenge previous assumptions
- provide key insights

ACT ON YOUR FINDINGS!!!
This will almost always dramatically improve your interface.

## Example from ERS (1 of 2):“A.R.M.S”

- _Method_
- Designed a paper prototype.
- Went to researchers’ offices and asked them to perform their current statistical research using the paper interface.
- Redesigned the interface.
- Retested the interface in context.

- _Outcomes_
- Saw how the work is really done.
- Revealed a big mismatch between the interface and the work.
- Gave insight into a key feature that needed to be added to the system.
- The revised design was rated highly by future ARMS users.

-    A complex, online statistics application

## Example from ERS (2 of 2):“Content Admin. Tool”

- _Method_
- Went to the managing editor’s office to see:
- how she does the work
- what steps she takes
- what forms she receives
- who she contacts during the process.
- Used findings to make usage scenarios.
- Used scenarios to inform paper prototypes.
- Returned to validate the paper interface.

- _Outcomes_
- The details of the process were crucial to designing the interface.
- The final design was successful and rated highly by the managing editor and others.

-   ERS’ internal content administration tool for cataloging content on the public website.

**Notes:**
Jane asks Adam to catalog an Ag Outlook Report that will be released tomorrow at 4:00 PM.  She sends him the metadata form correctly filled out.  Jane wants to review and approve the Ag Outlook Report page before COB today.

Jane is told that the a recently-posted report on BSE needs to be take off the website immediately.  Adam is out today, so she must do it herself!

## Resources

- “_Contextual Design_” by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt
- “_Scenario Based Design_” by John Carroll