Chapter Introduction | Web Resources | Assignment Comments | Teaching Materials

Doing observational work is not easy, and it requires practice. The assignment at the end of Chapter 9 aims to give you some practice, but in a 'friendly' environment, i.e. one that you know well. This can have advantages and disadvantages, since you have to detach yourself from what you know of the situation, and be an impartial observer. However, you can learn a lot by doing this assignment, and the frameworks provided by Coherence and Contextual Design will help you structure the observation.

Both of these methods are intended to produce results to be used in the design activity, so having in mind the goal of designing a new device to support some aspect of the work you're observing will also give you appropriate perspective.