Contextual Application Design
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Contextual application design in digital media is the adaptation of the
contextual design Contextual design (CD) is a user-centered design process developed by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt. It incorporates ethnographic methods for gathering data relevant to the product via field studies, rationalizing workflows, and designing human†...
process developed by Hugh Beyer and
Karen Holtzblatt Karen Holtzblatt is an American computer scientist known for her contributions in human–computer interaction, and particularly in contextual design. She founded InContext Design in 1992, and is its CEO. Holtzblatt was elected to the CHI Academy ...
, in the mobile software space, taking advantage of the measurability of the media,
context awareness Context awareness refers, in information and communication technologies, to a capability to take into account the ''situation'' of ''entities'', which may be users or devices, but are not limited to those. ''Location'' is only the most obvious el ...
technologies in mobile devices, aggregation and analytics systems, to create a
user-centered design User-centered design (UCD) or user-driven development (UDD) is a framework of process (not restricted to interfaces or technologies) in which usability goals, user characteristics, environment, tasks and workflow of a product, service or proce ...
process where developers aggregate data from users' real-world behavior and patterns, and applying these findings into a final product.


Uses and adaptations

Contextual application design has primarily been used to create mobile applications that may deliver valuable insights based on cross referencing digital content with physical context, such as the experience delivered b
Google Now
Another implementation is to create applications with a user interface that is reactive to context using
context-sensitive user interface A context-sensitive user interface offers the user options based on the state of the active program. Context sensitivity is ubiquitous in current graphical user interfaces, often in context menus. A user-interface may also provide context sensitiv ...
. These methods have also been implemented for software, and parts of contextual design have been adapted for use as a
usability Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a soft ...
evaluation method.McDonald, S., Monahan, K., and Cockton, G. 2006. Modified contextual design as a field evaluation method. In Proceedings of the 4th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer interaction: Changing Roles (Oslo, Norway, October 14–18, 2006). A. Mørch, K. Morgan, T. Bratteteig, G. Ghosh, and D. Svanaes, Eds. NordiCHI '06, vol. 189. ACM Press, New York, NY, 437-440.


Process overview

The contextual design process consists of the following: contextual inquiry, data consolidation and analytics, visioning, storyboarding, user environment design, and prototyping.


Collecting data – contextual inquiry

Contextual inquiry Contextual inquiry (CI) is a user-centered design (UCD) research method, part of the contextual design methodology. A contextual inquiry interview is usually structured as an approximately two-hour, one-on-one interaction in which the researcher w ...
is a field data collection technique used to capture detailed information about how users of a product interact with the product in their normal environment. In mobile applications, a key aspect of the technique is detailed logging of their physical environment factors (factors), typically achieved by logging mobile sensor data or data from a contextual awareness SDK, combined with their in-app activity and interaction. Key takeaways from the technique are to learn what users actually do, why they do it that way and when.


Data analytics

The purpose of the data analysis is to reveal patterns and the structure across distinct interactions. A contextual data analytics collects data logs, events and context awareness parameters and streams them into an easy to process database which may be queried to provide insights. A typical example would be the system implemented b
Sensiya Analytics


Visioning

In visioning, a cross-functional team comes together to vision and suggest better performing experiences based on reviewing the data and identifying key issues and opportunities. Visions are a variety of new product concepts for different usage scenarios based on the data collected.


Storyboarding

After visioning, a design team develops the vision in
storyboards A storyboard is a graphic organizer that consists of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence. The storyboarding process, in the ...
, capturing scenarios of how users will work with the new system under different context.


Software prototyping

Software prototyping Software prototyping is the activity of creating prototypes of software applications, i.e., incomplete versions of the software program being developed. It is an activity that can occur in software development and is comparable to prototyping as ...
is used for testing the design ideas with interactive prototypes before the implementation phase helps the designers communicate with users about the new system and develop the design further.


References

{{Reflist Mobile software Software design