In the Intro to HCI (Human Computer Interaction) class I am auditing with Prof. Terry Winograd, project teams have been assigned to perform a "contextual inquiry."

Contextual inquiry involves going out to the field to interview your target users. For those of you who have access to their target users or have people on their team in the field, this is a very good method of starting to gather information with which to build your project requirements.

Let me know if you've tried this. When we set up meetings for the HCI/user experience group, those of us who have tried this can talk about how it did or didn't help.

Assignment (from CS147):  

For the contextual inquiry, you are expected to interview at least 3 members of your target user population to ascertain their current needs within your problem domain and to learn about their suggestions for how your system could be designed to assist them.

Here are some suggestions for questions you should be trying to answer in doing your interviews.

• What user group do these people represent?
• What is their background?
• What skills do they have relevant to your project?
• What are their relevant physical characteristics?
• What related tasks do they perform currently?
• How often are the tasks performed?
• What are the time constraints on tasks?
• Where and in what conditions are tasks performed? Inside, outside?
• Classroom, library, laboratory?
• Relaxed or stressful?
• Do the environmental conditions make it hard to hold small devices?
• How are existing tasks learned? e.g., do they need special training?
• What other relevant tools does the user have?
• What communication channels do they use in conjunction with the activities (e.g,. phone, IM,...) What do they see as their needs for better tools/devices?
• Are there relevant social concerns (e..g, privacy)
• What kinds of breakdowns occur in doing the tasks, and what do they do about them?