(16:137:532) Contextual Inquiry

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

• User research fundamentals – Categories of user research techniques from
  observation to ethnography to participatory practices, ethics, and core skills of
  interviewing, observing, and planning a project.
• Collect, and analyze users’ qualitative/quantitative data
• Demonstrate basic principles of contextual inquiry
• Task and activity analysis – Techniques for observing and noting the steps and
  interactions in an activity, including activity diagrams and journey maps.
• Personas and scenarios – Techniques for representing an understanding of users
  through segmentation, personas, and writing stories or scenarios to communicate
  the user context.
• Surveys and other remote data collection methods – An overview of the range of
  user research techniques including surveys, diary studies, artifact probes, and
  how to ask questions effectively.
• Card sorting and analytics – card sorting for information architecture, and ways to
  use site and search analytics to analyze behavior.
• Bringing research into the design studio – using the design studio approach for
  research-based ideation and exploring new ideas.
• Planning a project – organizing the research toolkit so you can select a balance
  of methods by type of data collected, whether it is qualitative or quantitative in
  approach, and where it fits in the user-centered design cycle.