Universal Methods of Design

RESEARCH METHOD • SYNTHESIS / ANALYSIS TECHNIQUE • RESEARCH DELIVERABLE

19 Contextual Design

Contextual design is a customer-centered process that makes the ways in which designers work concrete, explicit, and sharable so that every step is anchored in customer data and feels less like design “magic.”¹

Making the leap from customer-centered data to a sound design direction is a process that involves many methods of data collection, intermediary steps of analysis and synthesis, and a host of research deliverables. Seasoned designers understand this work intuitively—over time, experience and trust in the design process shapes our confidence to execute ...