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Specify the context of use
April 8, 2013
The objectives in the phase of "specify the context of use" is to know the environment in which the product is going to be used. You have to understand your user community.
When designing a successful product, you need to verify or challenge your assumptions about users. To learn about users' realities, you need to get out and meet them in helping you to understand.
There are numerous methods that help project teams gather rich, current insights about the actual user community.
- Contextual interviews:
The contextual inquiry is a specific type of interview to obtain information about the context of use, where users are first asked a set of standard questions and then observed and questioned while they work in their own environments. - Ethnography:
Ethnography is a qualitative research method where researchers observe and/or interact with a studyfs participants in their real-life environment. Ethnography provides a comprehensive perspective of the user and their environment. It also enables deeper behavior observations within their natural environment. - Individual interviews:
The individual interview is a method for discovering facts and opinions held by potential users of the system being designed. Because you are talking to one person at a time, you can obtain a deep understanding of the people who come to your site. - Focus groups:
Focus groups involve group discussions moderated by trained facilitators. In a focus group, you bring together from six to nine users to discuss issues and concerns about the features of a user interface. The role of focus groups is to discover what users want from the system as well as to assess interaction styles or design usability.
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