Contextual Design (Wikipedia)
An encyclopedia article on Contextual Design, the broader user-centered design methodology that Contextual Inquiry supplies field data for. Wikipedia articles are continuously edited, so year above reflects the access date (2026-08-18), not a fixed publication year.
License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Key points
- Contextual Inquiry is the first of seven steps: Contextual Inquiry (field data collection), Interpretation (analyzing individual sessions), Data Consolidation (finding cross-session patterns via affinity diagrams), Visioning (new product concept stories), Storyboarding (scenarios in visual sequence), User Environment Design (diagramming system structure), and Prototyping (testing designs with users). See Contextual Inquiry.
- Five named work models turn field data into a shared representation of work practice: the flow model (coordination, communication, and roles among people), the sequence model (the steps a user takes to complete an activity, including where it breaks down), the cultural model (norms, influences, and pressures from the surrounding organization or environment), the artifact model (documents and physical objects created or used during the work), and the physical model (the spatial environment the work happens in).