Contextual Inquiry
Contextual Inquiry is a field research method for understanding users by observing and interviewing them in their real work environment. Developed by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt at Applied Research and Technology, this method combines ethnographic observation with targeted questioning to capture not just what users say they do, but what they actually do—including workarounds, informal practices, and priorities often invisible in lab settings. Contextual Inquiry uncovers the context, constraints, and real-world complexity of user tasks, providing rich insights for user-centered design.
Source record
Citations copied verbatim from the method’s source record. No claim-level verification is inferred from them.
- Beyer, H., & Holtzblatt, K. (1998). Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems. Morgan Kaufmann. · ISBN 1-558-60722-X
- Holtzblatt, K., & Jones, S. (1993). Contextual inquiry: A participatory technique for system design. In D. Schuler & A. Namioka (Eds.), Participatory Design (pp. 177–210). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. · ISBN 0-8058-1441-7
Curated claims
Claims persisted in the evidence ledger, each with its own assessment.
This view does not invent a claim assessment when the ledger has none.
Related methods
Generated from the method graph and shown as machine-suggested relations — no evidence claim is inferred.