Contextual Design / Synthesis Lectures on Human-Centered Informatics (PDF)

Karen Holtzblatt, CEO and Co-founder of InContext, is the visionary behind InContext's unique customer-centered design approach, Contextual Design. Karen's combination of technological and psychological expertise provides the creative framework for driving the development, innovative designs, and design processes. Recognized as a leader in requirements and design, Karen has pioneered transformative ideas and design approaches throughout her career. Most recently, Karen initiated the Cool Project to explore users' experience of cool products. The November issue of Interactions showcases the core factors affecting the ""cool"" user experience in the cover story, ""What Makes Things Cool?"" Karen introduced Contextual Inquiry, now the industry standard for gathering field data to understand how technology impacts the way people work. Contextual Inquiry and the design processes based on it provide a revolutionary approach for designing new products and systems based on a deep understanding of the context of use. Contextual Inquiry forms the base of Contextual Design, InContext's full customer-centered design process. Karen co-founded InContext Design in 1992 to use Contextual Design techniques to coach product teams and deliver market data and design solutions to businesses across multiple industries. The books, Contextual Design: Defining Customer Centered Systems and Rapid Contextual Design, are used by companies and universities worldwide. As a member of ACM CHI (the association for computer-human interaction), Karen was awarded membership to the CHI Academy, a gathering of significant contributors, and received the first Lifetime Award for Practice, presented to her in 2010, for her impact on the field. Karen has more than 25 years of teaching experience, both professionally and in university settings. She holds a doctorate in applied psychology from the University of Toronto.Hugh Beyer has more than 20 years of experience building and designing applications,