Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems (Interactive Technologies) [ペーパーバック]

「必要は発明の母」だとしたら、新しいシステムを開発するには、まずユーザーが何を必要としているのかきちんと理解しなくてはならない。本書で著者カレンとヒューは、そういった潜在的な顧客の要望を掘り起こし、理解し、利用する方法を段階的に提案している。この本の手法以外のやり方で仕事をしている開発者は、絶対にこの本を買って、自分に足りないものは何か、よく気をつけて読んでみることだ。（「ビジカルク」共同開発者、ダン・ブリックリン）

顧客であるチームや組織の要望をあくまでも第一に考えると、システム開発やその手順の決め手となるのは、実際の仕事に携わる人たちから集めたデータである。本書はその観点から、ビジネスにおける顧客本位のアプローチ法を紹介した1冊だ。顧客の希望を反映させたシステム設計を目指す者にとって実りの多い、実用向きの内容である。著者は、常に顧客と一体化しソフトウェア製品や社内システムの設計に努める手法「コンテクスチュアル・デザイン」を提案している。本書を読めばその手法の根本原則が理解でき、さらに種々の問題や制約、組織の諸事情を考慮すべき場合での応用方法も身につくのだ。

『Contextual Design』は、ふだん人々が仕事上でコンピュータシステムをどう利用しているかについて詳細なデータを集め、そこから浮かび上がってくる顧客層の全体像をつかみ、顧客の仕事内容に関する知識をもとにシステムデザインを生み出し、さらに一連の既存システムを図表化してその関連性、矛盾点、冗長部分、欠落部分を具体的に表す能力を授けてくれる1冊である。

This book introduces a customer-centered approach to business by showing how data gathered from people while they work can drive the definition of a product or process while supporting the needs of teams and their organizations. This is a practical, hands-on guide for anyone trying to design systems that reflect the way customers want to do their work. The authors developed Contextual Design, the method discussed here, through their work with teams struggling to design products and internal systems. In this book, you'll find the underlying principles of the method and how to apply them to different problems, constraints, and organizational situations.

Contextual Design enables you to
+ gather detailed data about how people work and use systems
+ develop a coherent picture of a whole customer population
+ generate systems designs from a knowledge of customer work
+ diagram a set of existing systems, showing their relationships, inconsistencies, redundancies, and omissions

There's certainly no shortage of software design methods: most demand total allegiance, and many claim to be the only true way to delivering useful and maintainable software systems in a timely manner. Contextual Design describes another worthwhile software engineering method, one that places the user (or customer) at the forefront of the software design process from beginning to end. This method seems to be a particularly worthwhile addition to the literature.

Contextual Design begins with contextual inquiry, where software developers interview users and attempt to understand the way they work. Such "customer empathy" is central to the Contextual Design process and a total understanding of "work" within organizations is the mantra here. The book describes how, later in the process, software developers step back from the user data and do an "affinity," which is an overall analysis of hundreds (or even thousands) of individual facts. Contextual Design then explains the additional steps required to build systems using this method, including building models for flow, sequence, and artifacts, and establishing the cultural and the physical environments for a system. After getting an overview, developers consolidate these initial models, get more user input, and then design user interfaces.

This book, written in a clear, informal style without excessive jargon, reads very much like a book on business motivation. Various practitioners of Contextual Design offer short testimonials on the software design method.

If necessity is the mother of invention, then if you don't know what the users need you can't invent. Karen and Hugh present a step-by-step way to uncover, understand, and use those needs. If developers are not already using techniques like those presented here, they should read this book carefully to see what they are missing.
--Dan Bricklin
co-creator of VisiCalc

This book introduces a customer-centered approach to business by showing how data gathered from people while they work can drive the definition of a product or process while supporting the needs of teams and their organizations. This is a practical, hands-on guide for anyone trying to design systems that reflect the way customers want to do their work. The authors developed Contextual Design, the method discussed here, through their work with teams struggling to design products and internal systems. In this book, you'll find the underlying principles of the method and how to apply them to different problems, constraints, and organizational situations.

Contextual Design enables you to
gather detailed data about how people work and use systems
develop a coherent picture of a whole customer population
generate systems designs from a knowledge of customer work
diagram a set of existing systems, showing their relationships, inconsistencies, redundancies, and omissions

This is a practical, hands-on guide for anyone trying to design systems that reflect the way customers want to do their work. The authors developed Contextual Design, the method discussed here, through their work with teams struggling to design products and internal systems. In this book, you'll find the underlying principles of the method and how to apply them to different problems, constraints, and organizational situations.

Contextual Design enables you to
* gather detailed data about how people work and use systems
* develop a coherent picture of a whole customer population
* generate system designs from a knowledge of customer work
* diagram a set of existing systems, showing their relationships, inconsistencies, redundancies, and omissions

The foremost experts on contextual inquiry have packed what they know into a book of substance and intelligence. It lucidly shows how to capture the real requirements of customers adn fit designs to their needs. If you care about your customers and want to understand what they need, then you need this book.
--Larry Constantine, Principal Consultant, Constantine & Locwood, Ltd.
Professor of Computing Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney (Australia)
Author of Constantine on Peopleware and Software for User

This book conveys the understanding and wisdom that they [the authors] have gained from their experience in contextual design in a form that is accessible to students and design practitioners. It will serve as a guide and handbook for the next generation of interaction designers, and as a result we can expect the usability and appropriateness of computer systems to be greatly improved.
--Terry Winograd, Stanford University

Hugh Beyer is a co-founder of InContext Enterprises, Inc., a firm that works with companies, coaching teams to design products, product strategies, and information systems from customer data. Hugh Beyer has pioneered the link between the customer-centered front end and object-oriented design.

Karen Holtzblatt is a co-founder of InContext Enterprises, Inc., a firm that works with companies, coaching teams to design products, product strategies, and information systems from customer data. Karen Holtzblatt developed the Contextual Inquiry field data gathering technique that forms the core of Contextual Design and is now taught and used world-wide.