The Key to Successful UX Design: Understanding and Specifying the Context of Use
One of the ultimate goals of UX design is to create an interactive system that meets users’ needs and expectations. However, achieving this goal is not a one-size-fits-all approach. The key to success lies in understanding and specifying the context of use. By doing so, UX designers can identify usage requirements, develop an interactive system that fits within the user’s context of use, and minimize the number of iterations required.
If you are unfamiliar with the steps of the Human-Centered Design Process, I highly recommend reading the first introductory blog article in this series, Designing for Humans: The Importance of Human-Centered Design in Software Development.
In case you are familiar with it, but anyways you want to read about the first step of the process, go to the previous article of this series: Planning a Human-Centered Design Process: With Business and Human Quality Goals in Mind
And without further ado, let’s proceed with the article…
Step 2: Understanding and Specifying the Context of Use
The ultimate goal of understanding and specifying the context of use is to develop a product that is not only easy to use, intuitive, and enjoyable for the user, but also provides the necessary support to complete their tasks. This approach ensures that users can efficiently and effectively achieve their goals, leading to a more satisfying experience and increased engagement with the product.
In a previous article titled “Planning a Human-Centered Design Process: With Business and Human Quality Goals in Mind,” we discussed how usage requirements refer to what users need to be able to do to perform a task when interacting with a system. These requirements are not other thing than the derived outputs of understanding the context of use.
In the model above, you can see a graphical representation of how the understanding of the elements of the context of use feed the specification of usage requirements to finally design an interactive system.
By prioritizing the context of use UX Designers can design products that provide real value to users.
What is the context of use?
The context of use refers to the set of conditions under which an interactive system is used. It takes into account users, their goals and tasks, available resources, and the environment. In other words, it is a holistic view of how users interact with the system and the factors that influence their interactions.
To provide a standardized language for professionals and structure UX work and methods, the field of UX has developed a model that outlines the elements and outputs of the context of use. The model includes users, goals and tasks, resources, and environment.
Users:
Understanding and catering to the needs of users is fundamental in the field of UX. As the most critical element of the context of use, users are responsible for making selections, entering information, and recognizing content within an interactive system.
There are several types of users or user groups, including primary users who utilize the system for its intended purpose, secondary users who perform tasks such as maintenance or training of primary users, and indirect users who benefit from the system’s results without direct interaction.
On the other hand, to develop a successful product, it is crucial to comprehend the user’s mental model, which comprises their characteristics and pre-existing knowledge before using the software.
Aligning the system’s design with the user’s mental model can significantly enhance their experience, making it easier for them to use and understand. Achieving this can be accomplished through the use of clear and concise wording, well-defined nomenclature, and effective information architecture, for example.
Artifacts to consider for usability engineering: User group profiles.
Artifacts to consider for communicating to stakeholders: Personas.
Tasks and Goals:
Tasks are another crucial element of the context of use. Goals and tasks are inseparably linked. Goals always result in a task that must be performed, and in order to finish this task, you will probably have to finish multiple sub-tasks first.
Goals can be defined as the intended work results and can be categorized into two types: pragmatic goals (e.g., “to be at the destination by a car at a certain time”) and hedonic goals (e.g., “enjoy driving the car while driving”).
Artifacts to consider for usability engineering: Task models (of the current context of use) and current scenarios.
Artifacts to consider for communicating to stakeholders: User journey maps (of the current context of use).
Resources:
Resources can be defined as all the instruments necessary to use an interactive system, including reusable resources (e.g., tablet, hardware) and consumable resources (e.g., time, materials). A hint to differentiate resources is to remember that they are things that you as a company do not provide to the user.
Artifacts to consider for usability engineering: Current scenarios.
Artifacts to consider for communicating to stakeholders: User journey maps (of the current context of use).
Environment:
The environment refers to the physical, social, and technical conditions under which a user interacts with an interactive system. This includes various elements such as location context (e.g., user’s location, noise level, traffic conditions, temperature), time context (e.g., day, week, month, season), identity context (e.g., user’s profile, current social situation), social/network context (e.g., people nearby), biometric context (e.g., biometric information), and light context (e.g., light).
For usability engineering, it is important to consider the current scenarios. To effectively communicate the current context of use to stakeholders, user journey maps are recommended.
Main Takeaways
The Step 2 of the Human-Centered Design Process: Understanding and specifying the context of use; is probably one of the most important factor for success since it determines the usage requirements that the interactive system must fulfill to allow users to complete their tasks and therefore achieve their goals.
By prioritizing the understanding of the user groups, their goals and tasks, resources, and the environment. UX designers can create products that their design match their mental models and provides real value to the users and business as ultimate outcome.
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References:
Thomas Geis and Guido Tesch(2019) ‘Basiswissen Usability und User Experience: Aus- und Weiterbildung’
