context mapping
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context mapping: figuring out what you know and don’t know of your users aga szóstek(at)gmail.com
to design genuine experiences the designer needs to build empathy towards the user
Which one is the facial
and which one
the hemorrhoid crème?
Empathy is: “our intuitive ability to identify with other people’s thoughts and feelings – their motivations, emotional and mental models, values, priorities, preferences, and inner conflicts”.
empathy is happening in context
context is tough to understand
the importance of carefully defining and redefining the context for every design problem
alternative stories for the context
imagining the context from the perspective of the different users
context always has components of time and space, whereas experience occurs in the context of time
we have a tendency to imagine an ideal world
while the world in not ideal at all
but it’s infinitely creative and full of inspiration
context mapping
- ambiguity of the phrase itself - traditional definition used in the domain of
contextmapping: „context between people and products”
- operationalized by the Aristotelian questions: what? how? who? when? where? how long? why?...
- the selection of the questions determines, which aspects (beyond cognitive and physical) are important for defining the research problem
try it out
emotions environment
mood group context
senses
place
other objects
ritual
time of the day
what happened before
what will happen after
how to map context?
1. preparations 2. sensitizing 3. data aggregation 4. data analysis 5. creative workshop
example: travelling with small kids
- tons of luggage - issues pertaining to
safety and hygiene - unpredictable
behaviour of kids
assumptions
sensitizing
- preparation of a booklet where the parents could describe and draw how travelling with kids looks like
- questions about: how the trip went, feeding and food aspects, contents of the luggage, division of tasks between the parents
data aggregation
- preparation of a collage presenting the collected insights, particularly focusing on what’s irritating
- discussion about ideal solutions for eating rituals during the trips
data analysis - selection of interesting issues,
stories and descriptions of critical situations in a form of a scrapbook
- returning to the initial assumptions to verify them
- categorization of the uncovered issues through drawings and photos
- a bag with products taken for the trips with labels with inspirational quotes from the participants
the most interesting insight
the way kids behave in the car and in the restaurant
what do you get out of context mapping?
- intensification of users’ involvement - creation of a common language - looking for inspiration on different levels - materialization of new questions and discovery
of dead ends - confirmation or rejection of assumptions
regarding a given user group
how to do contextmapping?
PREPARATIONS
goal setting
- formulation of the research goal - instead of a broad question, such as: having insight in the use of mobile phone to stay in touch with the partner the goal can be formulated as: what is it like to be a partner who is just returning from the long absence and what concerns, feelings and attitudes do they have when being on the way home?
- the product itself should not be mentioned in the goal - a clear goal statement is especially relevant as the resulting
data is fragmentary, multi-layered and consists of individual stories
preliminary mapping
- mapping knowledge and views of the experience domain with two goals in mind: - reducing the risk of projecting one’s preconceptions on
the participants - supporting the researcher in formulating instructions and
providing a starting structure for data analysis - having an initial map helps to differentiate what is already
known from what was learned from the participants
participant selection
- inviting a variety of people leads to rich and diverse discussions
- the background of participants influences the study - sessions with a few participants (2 – 4) reveals fewer stories as
there is less opportunity to reflect on each other’s experiences - a group of four is large enough to create a group feeling and
have discussions and six is small enough to pay attention to every individual
- in a group with more than six participants it becomes more difficult to pay attention to every individual
- doing two or more sessions reduces the possibility of group dynamics suffering from topics only mentioned by one or a few dominant participants
SENSITIZING
sensitizing package
- basic principle of the exercises in the package is to let people express memories, opinions, dreams around the central topic of the study
- participants receive the package about one or two weeks before the creative session
- small playful exercises trigger participants to reflect on their experiences without analyzing too much
- each exercise elicits a fresh perspective on the situation that is explored
- sensitizing packages are meant to stimulate reflection on the participants’ daily experiences
- the design of the sensitizing package should be playful and professional but also informal
- the subject of the package is usually broader than the study subject
- the activities should be inspirational and provocative. - the package aims to stimulate participants to reflect on a daily
pattern over a few days so they slowly become aware about their experiences
- the package needs to include white space to write ideas and impromptu comments.
- working on the sensitizing packages should require no more than five to ten minutes per day
sessions with participants
advantages disadvantages
group sessions participants can react to each other’s experiences a global view of the context and various user experiences will be created
a large amount of diverse information is generated in one session without professional moderation, one dominant participant can influence the group it is difficult, although possible to obtain individual responses
pair sessions participants feel comfortable because they are with a friend, spouse, etc. participants may reveal things about each other the session can take place at the participant’s home or workplace
less diversity in the total range of participants since members of the pair are related or acquainted
individual sessions a lot of attention and time can be devoted to a participant and this can bring out detailed information the session can take place at the participant’s home or workplace
a participant can feel inhibited, because it may feel as if a psychologist is testing him/her about feelings, experiences and needs it is more time-consuming than groups
data analysis
fixating on the data
- documenting thoughts and remarks from the session - analysis of the audio and video-documentation. - working with transcripts to annotate the data and select
quotes
analyzing and being surprised
- searching through the data for interesting indicators - all impressions and insights need to be written down - making notes on post-it notes facilitates their rearrangement
finding patterns
- organizing and reorganizing the annotations and the data - determining recurrent and/or striking themes - working spatially, e.g., on a wall or large boards - creating overviews to show the relations between different
experiences and themes visually
communicating the results
references Visser, Froukje Sleeswijk, et al. "Contextmapping: experiences from practice." CoDesign 1.2 (2005): 119-149. Sanders, Elizabeth B-N., and Pieter Jan Stappers. "Co-creation and the new landscapes of design." Co-design 4.1 (2008): 5-18. Sanders, Liz. "ON MODELING An evolving map of design practice and design research." interactions 15.6 (2008): 13-17. Kouprie, Merlijn, and Froukje Sleeswijk Visser. "A framework for empathy in design: stepping into and out of the user's life." Journal of Engineering Design 20.5 (2009): 437-448. Sleeswijk Visser, Froukje, Remko Van der Lugt, and Pieter Jan Stappers. "Sharing user experiences in the product innovation process: Participatory design needs participatory communication." Creativity and innovation management 16.1 (2007): 35-45. IDStudioLab – studiolab.ide.tudelft.nl/studiolab/contextmapping Contextmapping - contextmapping.nl
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