Contextual Inquiry is a valuable tool for collecting and analyzing user data, superior to relying on general feedback from user self-reports and questionnaires. This method encourages Agile team members to see the world from the users’ perspective by working directly in the users’ context. As a result, designers and developers gain insights that will help them avoid unnecessary complexity while creating experiences and interfaces that match the end-users's needs and expectations.

Our presentation starts with a historical view of a problem we were asked to solve, then covers how we planned and executed our Contextual Inquiry study, and concludes with lessons learned from our experiences.

Josh Evnin

Marjorie Pries

Thoughtworks, Inc.

A .pdf handout of the presentation is attached here.