We help you invent. insights services our work contextual design publications about us Design Webinars Hosted by InContext InContext presenting at CHI 2014 Contact Us Building Address 36 Knox Trail Suite 302 Acton, MA 01742 Mailing Address 2352 Main Street Suite 302 Concord, MA 01742 Phone 978-823-0100 Email Inquiries [email protected]Get Directions or Let us contact you Follow Karen Follow Us Looking for more? Sign up for the InContext Newsletter! Enter Email Sign Up InContext at CHI 2014 January 6th – March 14th @ Stanford University A course on understanding women’s experience in high-tech industires Boston UXPA Conference May in boston A conference about computer-human interaction, innovation and modern design theory Cool Workshop April 26th – May 1st in Toronto A conference about computer-human interaction, innovation and modern design theory Design Webinars April 26th – May 1st in Toronto A conference about computer-human interaction, innovation and modern design theory Know you are building the right thing II By Karen Holtzblatt Thursday, Dec 5th, 2013 How do you guarantee success? Use a structured technique that has been used by teams over many years and taught in many Universities around the world. Did you miss Part 1 of our video series? Part 1 focused on the idea that we all want a successful product. [Read more] Innovation by Design By Karen Holtzblatt Sunday, Dec 1st, 2013 Do you want to transform your products for the next generation of users and platforms? Our “Cool Project”—a multi-year field research effort—reveals what makes technology products compelling. We now understand why users just can’t stop talking about how their cool products impact their lives—and create delight. [Read more] Transforming the Business of Law By Karen Holtzblatt Saturday, Nov 2nd, 2013 Nothing is better than helping our clients be successful; it’s the proverbial icing on the cake when they receive industry recognition. So we’re pleased that TyMetrix is featured in an episode of “Innovations” with Ed Begley, Jr. on Fox Business Television. “Innovations” is an information-based TV series... [Read more] Design Insights from the Incontext Staff View all design posts > At InContext Design, we infuse insight into your products and organization. Everything we do is driven by a deep understanding of your customer. Welcome We Understand We Measure We Design Upcoming Events InContext featured in FORTUNE magazine
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We help you invent.
insights services our work contextual design publications about us
Looking for more? Sign up for the InContext Newsletter!
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See what industries we work with and how we can help you innovate
We use Cont�tual Design to define innovative, customer-centered product concepts,
hardware/software solutions, business systems, websites, and consumer goods. Our field data provides
rich market characterizations and personas to help you understand the needs of your user population.
Our design process ensures that your user interface designs and overall user experience is designed with
customer data. And, we deliver training services in our Contextual Design methodology for your teams.
�e Cont�tual Design methodology, developed by Karen Holtzblatt and Hugh
Beyer, is a customer-centered design process which uses extensive field data as the foundation for
understanding users’ needs, tasks, intents, and processes in order to design products that meet both
users’ and business’ needs. Karen and Hugh founded InContext in 1992. Since that time, we have
worked with leaders and startups from a range of industries, including automotive, business systems,
consumer electronics, developer systems, education, enterprise and CRM applications, insurance,
medical devices and information, mobile devices, professional information and services. retail websites,
software for devices, and telecommunications.
We have been a major player in moving the high-tech industry from engineering-driven
to customer-centered design for all types of products and technologies. Our first book, Contextual
Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems, is considered a classic and is used in design and
human-computer interaction (HCI) curricula at universities, as well as in companies, throughout the
world. Our second book, Rapid Contextual Design, gained widespread use as a practical, hands-on
guide to using Contextual Design. Our monograph User-Centered Agile Methods explains how to bridge
the gap between the Agile development and UX communities
Giving Back
Since its inception, InContext has donated a percentage of our income to YouthBuild USA, an
organization that empowers inner city youth through a combination of education and training in the
construction industry. It’s a powerful, effective program—one we’re proud to support.
insights services our work contextual design publications about us
About We are a team of entrepeneurial
thinkers, designers, and doers. Nice to meet you
Karen Hol blatt is the founder & CEO of InContext
Since I started working with computers back in the 80’s, I’ve had a passion for integrating user research with innovative design. In fact, the first challenge I was given was to transform the usability studies of the time into a truly innovative method—and Contextual Design was the result. It’s been a long and rewarding journey since then, helping our clients to design better products, work better together, and have fun doing it! I’m looking forward to the next 10 years, when mobile devices and apps will complete the transformation they have already started to make in our lives.
Hugh Beyeris the co-founder & CTO of InContext
Hugh has more than 20 years of experience building and designing applications, systems, and tools. Before co-founding InContext, Hugh acted as lead developer and architect in a range of systems at Digital Equipment Corp. His domains of experience include object-oriented repositories, databases, and integrated software development environments. Since starting InContext, Hugh has overseen the design of applications from desktop to web to mobile, and from enterprise to small business to consumers in the wide variety of industries supported by InContext.
What is Contextual
Design?
insights services our work contextual design publications about us
Contextual DesignOur process was developed through years of research and understanding
consumer patterns and insights
Books Co-authored by InCont�tDesigning Composite ApplicationsBy Jörg Beringer and Karen HoltzblattGalileo Press (SAP Press); 2006.
InContext’s Karen Holtzblatt and SAP’s Jörg Beringer are the co-authors of a book that developers — plus anyone involved with enterprise application design and usability/quality management — will want to read. Designing Composite Applications discusses using the SAP Enterprise Service Architecture toolset and Contextual Design and shares exclusive insights on design processes based on SAP’s Business Process Platform. You’ll also learn valuable tricks and techniques that can drastically improve user productivity.
This is a practical, hands-on guide for anyone trying to design systems that reflects the way customers want to do their work. The authors developed Contextual Design, the method discussed here, through their work with teams struggling to design products and internal systems. In this book, you’ll find the underlying principles of the method and how to apply them to different problems, constraints, and organizational situations.
Books with Chapters by InCont�tScenarios, Stories, Use Cases: Through the Systems Development Life-CycleEdited by Ian Alexander and Neil MaidenJohn Wiley & Sons: NY, 2004.This book includes a chapter by Karen Holtzblatt, “Role of Scenarios in Contextual Design.”
The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook: Fundamentals, Evolving Technologies and Emerging ApplicationsEdited by Julie A. Jacko and Andrew SearsLawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ, 2003.This handbook has a chapter by Karen Holtzblatt, “Contextual Design.”
Field Methods for Software and Systems DesignEdited by Dennis Wixon and Judith RameyJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc.: NY, 1996.A good resource for anyone wanting to adopt customer-centered methods in his or her own organization, this book includes chapters describing the experience of several different practitioners using field methods. Various people who have used Contextual Inquiry and Contextual Design — including Beyer and Holtzblatt — have written chapters describing their experiences.
References and Articles.Numerous articles on Contextual Design have appeared in referenced journals, books on user-centered design, and websites. They include:
“What Makes Things Cool?” By Karen HoltzblattACM interactions (Nov. 2011) This cover story introduces InContext’s research into what makes someone describe a product as “cool” and the key constructs uncovered as core to the user experience of cool.
“Customer-Centered Design for Mobile Applications”By Karen HoltzblattPersonal and Ubiquitous Computing (May 2005), Issue: Volume 9, No 4This article describes InContext’s experience using customer-centered design to create a mobile application for sports fans, and how we modified Contextual Design to produce the application.
“Designing for the Mobile Device: Experiences, Challenges, and Methods”Edited by Karen HoltzblattCommunications of the ACM, T. S. Balaji, K. Holtzblatt, E. Kangas, J. Kates, T. Kinnunen, B. Landers, C. Page, B. Moritz, J. Bloom, J. Chipcase, J. Lehikoinen, D. Rondeau. Volume 48, No 7, July 2005.This special section in Communications of the ACM has articles by Karen Holtzblatt and several of our clients describing their experiences with real-world aspects of mobile application design. Download
“An Agile Customer-Centered Method: Rapid Contextual Design”By Lisa Baker, Hugh Beyer, and Karen HoltzblattXP Agile Universe 2004 Proceedings, August 2004, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.This paper describes how a user-centered design method such as Contextual Design naturally fits with Agile development methods and recounts our experience with combining the two. Download
“xApps-A New Practice for Next Practice“By Joerg Berringer and Karen HoltzblattSAP Design Guild Edition 7 (Nov. 2003)xApps are composite applications, designed to define next practices. This article describes how composite applications drive business process and work practice innovation using concepts from Contextual Design
Featured ArticlesInContext at 20 By Karen Holtzblatt 20 years is a long time in the world of technology. When Karen started her initial work in Human-Computer Interaction, the interaction we were talking about was English-language command lines for the EVE editor at Digital Equipment Corporation. Most software at the time crunched numbers, filled in forms, or processed commands. EVE was revolutionary because you […]
Methods in Collision By Karen Holtzblatt and Hugh Beyer Products are produced by using a process – the way people organize themselves to get things done. Whether it is a formal process with a name or just the habits of working that get built up in a culture, nothing is produced without some kind of “way” of doing things. Companies are always looking for […]
Welcome to InnovationInCoolBy Karen Holtzblatt Come see our new site at www.innovationincool.com! When Apple came out with the iPhone in 2007 it was a game-changing product. Everybody was talking about it, even those not flocking to AT&T. People at parties gathered around the phone to watch the pinch, the swivel, the pictures, and the games. The technology industry, including our […]
Beyond the Tower of Babel By Karen Holtzblatt The sad news about product design is that it requires people to make and ship products. Products, systems, cars, medical devices, games, even apps—all require the work of many coordinating people. First, we have the development team; then add in marketing, product management, and testing; top with user-centered design roles: user interface, user research, user [...]
Other Written Works
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“�e forem�t �perts on cont�tual inquiry have packed what they know
into a book of su�tance and intelligence... If you care about your
customers and want to understand what they need, then you need this
book.” — Larry Constantine,
Principal Consultant, Constantine & Lockwood, Ltd.; Professor of
Computing Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
This is a practical, hands-on guide for anyone trying to design systems that reflects the way customers want to do their work. The authors developed Contextual Design, the method discussed here, through their work with teams struggling to design products and internal systems. In this book, you’ll find the underlying principles of the method and how to apply them to different problems, constraints, and organizational situations.
“�e forem�t �perts on cont�tual inquiry have packed what they know
into a book of su�tance and intelligence... If you care about your
customers and want to understand what they need, then you need this
book.” — Larry Constantine,
Principal Consultant, Constantine & Lockwood, Ltd.; Professor of
Computing Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
This is a practical, hands-on guide for anyone trying to design systems that reflects the way customers want to do their work. The authors developed Contextual Design, the method discussed here, through their work with teams struggling to design products and internal systems. In this book, you’ll find the underlying principles of the method and how to apply them to different problems, constraints, and organizational situations.
“�e forem�t �perts on cont�tual inquiry have packed what they know
into a book of su�tance and intelligence... If you care about your
customers and want to understand what they need, then you need this
book.” — Larry Constantine,
Principal Consultant, Constantine & Lockwood, Ltd.; Professor of
Computing Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
insights services our work contextual design publications about us
PublicationsThrough our published work, we've been a
major player in moving the high-tech industry from engineering-driven to
customer-centered design for all types of products, systems,
and technologies.
Follow KarenFollow Us
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Transforming the Business of LawBy Karen Holtzblatt Saturday, Nov 2nd, 2013
Nothing is better than helping our clients be successful; it’s the proverbial icing on the cake when they receive industry recognition. So we’re pleased that TyMetrix is featured in an episode of “Innovations” with Ed Begley, Jr. on Fox Business Television. “Innovations” is an information-based TV series geared toward educating the public on the latest [Read more]
Know you are building the right thing IIBy Karen Holtzblatt Thursday, Dec 5th, 2013
InContext featured in FORTUNE magazineBy Karen Holtzblatt Thursday, Dec 5th, 2013
Innovation by DesignBy Karen Holtzblatt Sunday, Dec 1st, 2013
Business Development, Innovations, Tymetrix
Cool Metrics, Innovation, Contextual Design
Looking for more? Sign up for the InContext Newsletter!
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We share our views and experience across a broad range of topics. Read what the InContext
staff is thinking about.
InContext featured in FORTUNE MagazineBy Kelley Wagg Thursday, Sep 12th, 2013
FORTUNE has published an interview with Karen about our work with General Motors, Creating an iPad experience — on four wheels. FORTUNE discusses how GM turned to InContext Design to help create its new flagship in-vehicle computer system.[Read more]
Know you are building the right thing IIIBy Karen Holtzblatt Thursday, Jan 30th, 2014
Often times, we don’t know where to begin. Start with understanding your customers. Contextual Inquiry is the first step of Contextual Design, it’s here where we understand the customer’s behaviors and the issues they face by speaking directly with them. Did you miss Part 2 of our video series? Click here to see [Read more]
Interaction Design, Innovation, Business Development
Finding a Product’s Cool FactorBy Karen Holtzblatt Tuesday, February 11th, 2014
Check out my latest article Finding a Product’s Cool Factor published in the Wall Street Journal, and find out what the key factors in a cool product are. We can help you apply our Cool Concepts and design principles to your products.[Read more]
Finding a Product’s Cool FactorBy Karen Holtzblatt Tuesday, February 11th, 2014
Check out my latest article Finding a Product’s Cool Factor published in the Wall Street Journal, and find out what the key factors in a cool product are. We can help you apply our Cool Concepts and design principles to your products.[Read more]
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