The Contextual Inquiry

Uncover user needs by observation and questioning

Photo by Andres Siimon on Unsplash

This article is part of a series on UX research methods. If you’re not sure what UX research is, you can read this explainer: What is User Experience Research?

As a UX designer you need to understand how users use your product or service, including how they use it in the real-world context. That way you can design solutions that actually solve problems for your users.

What is it?

The contextual inquiry can be seen as a hybrid between an observation and an interview. First you observe, then you interview to better understand what you just observed.

When is it valuable?

• When you want to understand your user’s workflow
• When you want to uncover new user needs
• When you want to understand the context in which the user is using your product or service
• When you have time for doing research

Do

• Take notes
• Take pictures (ask for permission first of course)
• Observe behavior
• Ask clarifying questions
• Notice things in the environment. Is it loud or quiet? Do people seem stressful or relaxed? Do you notice specific objects? Is there anything special about the clothes people wear? What tools or devices are being used?

Don’t

• Don’t interfere with the observation by asking too many questions. Just ask questions to clarify things, or write them down for later during the interview.
• Don’t explain things if the user is having trouble in his workflow.

Example

The goal of your research might be to have a better understanding of your user’s workflow through your application. You can then conduct interviews in the following way:

1. Find participants (if you have a sales department, then they’re your best friends)
2. Set up a visit. Make sure that they know how valuable their participation is and how it benefits them by having their voice heard.
3. During the observation, you can ask clarifying questions. But try not to interfere with the user’s workflow. Questions could be:

• Could you explain why you did that?
• Why do you do it this way and not that way?

4. See if they use any workarounds or do things in an unexpected way. Finding a workaround is like striking gold.

5. After the observation, have an interview with the user. Here you can ask more in-depth questions to better understand what you just saw.

You can now form a better image of the flow through your application and of things that could be improved. You also understand the environment that your application is being used in. This enables you to continue with making a user journey or with continuing your research with more focused questions.

To organize and analyze the results of your contextual inquiries, you might benefit from building a UX research repository.