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202 CHAPTER 8 Interviews and focus groups

CONTEXTUAL INQUIRY—CONT'D
Beyer and Holtzblatt's classic 1998 book presents a design approach that
extends far beyond the interview. Their detailed and practical discussion details
how analysis of interview results can be used to generate a series of informative
graphical models describing key aspects of workflows under discussion. Flow
models describe the sharing of information among individuals in a workplace;
sequence models outline the steps in completing a task; artifact models collect
the structure of information or other byproducts of work processes; cultural
models describe the backgrounds and assumptions of the context in which the
work is done; and physical models describe relevant physical and logistical
constraints (Beyer and Holtzblatt, 1998). Explicit understanding of attitudes that
users might have towards systems (cultural models) and of the environments in
which a system is used (physical models) can be crucial for success.
In Beyer and Holtzblatt's model, individual interview sessions are analyzed
in interpretation sessions, in which team members discuss each interview
in detail. Notes from these sessions are organized into affinity diagrams—
hierarchical groupings of structures and themes, built from the bottom up
(Figure 8.1). Groupings are given names, and groups are brought into larger,

FIGURE 8.1
An affinity diagram, illustrating groupings of individual observations into higher level
categories.
From https://www.flickr.com/photos/openmichigan/6266766746.