This is the third lecture about contextmapping given for the experience design master class at HITLab, Canterbury University in New Zealand. Contextmapping is an important exercise in the early design phase when the designer needs to confront his / her assumptions with the real world the users live in. It is a great preparation for user research.

1. context mapping:
figuring out what
you know and don’t know
of your users
aga szóstek(at)gmail.com

2. to design genuine experiences
the designer needs to
build empathy towards the user

3. Which one is the facial
and which one
the hemorrhoid crème?

8. Empathy is:
“our intuitive ability to identify with
other people’s thoughts and feelings –
their motivations, emotional and mental models,
values, priorities, preferences, and inner conflicts”.

10. empathy is happening in context

11. context is tough to understand

14. the importance
of carefully defining
and redefining
the context
for every
design problem

15. alternative stories for the context

16. imagining the context
from the perspective of the different users

17. context always has components of time and space,
whereas experience occurs in the context of time

18. we have a tendency to imagine
an ideal world

19. while the world
in not ideal at all

20. but it’s infinitely creative
and full of inspiration

21. context mapping

22. - ambiguity of the phrase itself
- traditional definition used in the domain of
contextmapping:
„context between people and products”
- operationalized by the Aristotelian questions:
what? how? who? when? where? how long? why?...
- the selection of the questions determines, which
aspects (beyond cognitive and physical) are
important for defining the research problem

23. try it out

25. emotions
environment
mood
group context
senses
place
other
objects
ritual
time of
the day
what
happened
before
what will
happen
after

26. how to map context?

27. 1. preparations
2. sensitizing
3. data aggregation
4. data analysis
5. creative workshop

28. example:
travelling with
small kids

29. - tons of luggage
- issues pertaining to
safety and hygiene
- unpredictable
behaviour of kids
assumptions

30. sensitizing
- preparation of a booklet where the parents could describe
and draw how travelling with kids looks like
- questions about: how the trip went, feeding and food
aspects, contents of the luggage, division of tasks between
the parents

31. data aggregation
- preparation of a
collage presenting the
collected insights,
particularly focusing
on what’s irritating
- discussion about ideal
solutions for eating
rituals during the trips

32. data analysis
- selection of interesting issues,
stories and descriptions of
critical situations in a form of
a scrapbook
- returning to the initial
assumptions to verify them
- categorization of the
uncovered issues through
drawings and photos
- a bag with products taken for
the trips with labels with
inspirational quotes from the
participants

33. the most interesting insight
the way kids behave
in the car
and in the restaurant

34. what do you get out
of context mapping?

35. - intensification of users’involvement
- creation of a common language
- looking for inspiration on different levels
- materialization of new questions and discovery
of dead ends
- confirmation or rejection of assumptions
regarding a given user group

36. how to do contextmapping?

37. PREPARATIONS

38. goal setting

39. - formulation of the research goal - instead of a broad
question, such as:
having insight in the use of mobile phone to stay in touch
with the partner
the goal can be formulated as:
what is it like to be a partner who is just returning from the
long absence and what concerns, feelings and attitudes do
they have when being on the way home?
- the product itself should not be mentioned in the goal
- a clear goal statement is especially relevant as the resulting
data is fragmentary, multi-layered and consists of individual
stories

40. preliminary mapping

41. - mapping knowledge and views of the experience domain
with two goals in mind:
- reducing the risk of projecting one’s preconceptions on
the participants
- supporting the researcher in formulating instructions and
providing a starting structure for data analysis
- having an initial map helps to differentiate what is already
known from what was learned from the participants

42. participant selection

43. - inviting a variety of people leads to rich and diverse
discussions
- the background of participants influences the study
- sessions with a few participants (2 – 4) reveals fewer stories as
there is less opportunity to reflect on each other’s experiences
- a group of four is large enough to create a group feeling and
have discussions and six is small enough to pay attention to
every individual
- in a group with more than six participants it becomes more
difficult to pay attention to every individual
- doing two or more sessions reduces the possibility of group
dynamics suffering from topics only mentioned by one or a
few dominant participants

44. SENSITIZING

45. sensitizing package

46. - basic principle of the exercises in the package is to let people
express memories, opinions, dreams around the central topic
of the study
- participants receive the package about one or two weeks
before the creative session
- small playful exercises trigger participants to reflect on their
experiences without analyzing too much
- each exercise elicits a fresh perspective on the situation that is
explored
- sensitizing packages are meant to stimulate reflection on the
participants’daily experiences

47. - the design of the sensitizing package should be playful and
professional but also informal
- the subject of the package is usually broader than the study
subject
- the activities should be inspirational and provocative.
- the package aims to stimulate participants to reflect on a daily
pattern over a few days so they slowly become aware about
their experiences
- the package needs to include white space to write ideas and
impromptu comments.
- working on the sensitizing packages should require no more
than five to ten minutes per day

48. sessions with participants

49. advantages disadvantages
group sessions participants can react to each other’s
experiences
a global view of the context and various
user experiences will be created
a large amount of diverse information is
generated in one session
without professional moderation, one
dominant participant can influence the
group
it is difficult, although possible to obtain
individual responses
pair sessions participants feel comfortable because they
are with a friend, spouse, etc.
participants may reveal things about each
other
the session can take place at the
participant’s home or workplace
less diversity in the total range
of participants since members of
the pair are related or acquainted
individual sessions a lot of attention and time can be devoted
to a participant and this can bring out
detailed information
the session can take place at the
participant’s home or workplace
a participant can feel inhibited, because
it may feel as if a psychologist is testing
him/her about feelings, experiences and
needs
it is more time-consuming than groups

52. data analysis

53. fixating on the data
- documenting thoughts and remarks from the session
- analysis of the audio and video-documentation.
- working with transcripts to annotate the data and select
quotes

54. analyzing and being surprised
- searching through the data for interesting indicators
- all impressions and insights need to be written down
- making notes on post-it notes facilitates their rearrangement

55. finding patterns
- organizing and reorganizing the annotations and the data
- determining recurrent and/or striking themes
- working spatially, e.g., on a wall or large boards
- creating overviews to show the relations between different
experiences and themes visually

56. communicating the results

60. references
Visser, Froukje Sleeswijk, et al. "Contextmapping: experiences from
practice." CoDesign 1.2 (2005): 119-149.
Sanders, Elizabeth B-N., and Pieter Jan Stappers. "Co-creation and the
new landscapes of design." Co-design 4.1 (2008): 5-18.
Sanders, Liz. "ON MODELING An evolving map of design practice and
design research." interactions 15.6 (2008): 13-17.
Kouprie, Merlijn, and Froukje Sleeswijk Visser. "A framework for empathy
in design: stepping into and out of the user's life." Journal of Engineering
Design 20.5 (2009): 437-448.
Sleeswijk Visser, Froukje, Remko Van der Lugt, and Pieter Jan Stappers.
"Sharing user experiences in the product innovation process:
Participatory design needs participatory communication." Creativity and
innovation management 16.1 (2007): 35-45.
IDStudioLab – studiolab.ide.tudelft.nl/studiolab/contextmapping
Contextmapping - contextmapping.nl