Contextual Inquiry

Contextual inquiry and Contextual assessment are processes by which end users are interviewed and observed in their natural environments interacting with a system. The primary advantage of this approach is that we can collect meaningful data about common tasks and task combinations users perform, the obstacles they face, and the problem-solving strategies they adopt. Data from a contextual inquiry are more qualitative in nature than those collected in a controlled usability test, and often provide insights that otherwise would go unnoticed. We typically conduct user interviews to complement and clarify the information collected during contextual inquiry.