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ReferencesNavigation arrowAuthorsNavigation arrowKaren Holtzblatt

Publication statistics

Pub. period:1988-2011
Pub. count:24
Number of co-authors:15



Co-authors

Number of publications with 3 favourite co-authors:

Hugh R. Beyer:8
Les Holtzblatt:2
John Whiteside:2

 

 

Productive colleagues

Karen Holtzblatt's 3 most productive colleagues in number of publications:

Dennis Wixon:43
Michael Good:27
John Whiteside:17
 
 
 
Jun 20

“ ...that strange new zone between medium and message. That zone we call the interface ”

-- Steven Johnson, 1997

 
 

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Karen Holtzblatt

Picture of Karen Holtzblatt. © Karen Holtzblatt
© Karen Holtzblatt
Has also published under the name of:
"Karen A. Holtzblatt"

Personal Homepage:
incontextdesign.com/people/karen-holtzblatt/


Current place of employment:
InContext

Recognized as a leader in the design community, Karen has pioneered transformative ideas and design approaches throughout her career. Karen is the inventor of Contextual Inquiry—the industry standard for gathering field data to understand how technology impacts the way people work. Contextual Inquiry and the design processes based on it provide a revolutionary approach for designing new products and systems based on a deep understanding of the context of use. Contextual Inquiry forms the base of Contextual Design, InContext’s full customer-centered design process. Karen co-founded InContext Enterprises in 1992 to use Contextual Design techniques to coach product teams and deliver customer-centered designs to businesses across multiple industries. The books, Contextual Design: Defining Customer Centered Systems, and Rapid Contextual Design, are used by companies and universities all over the world. Karen is a member of the CHI Academy (awarded to significant contributors in the Computer Human Interaction Association) and received the first Life Time Award for Practice at CHI2010 for her contributions to the field. Karen’s extensive experience with teams and all types of work and life practice underlies the innovation and reliable quality consistently delivered by InContext’s teams. Karen also has more than 20 years of teaching experience, professionally and in university settings. She holds a doctorate in applied psychology from the University of Toronto.

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Publications by Karen Holtzblatt (bibliography)

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2011

Holtzblatt, Karen and Beyer, Hugh R. (2011). Contextual Design. Retrieved 20 June 2013 from [URL to be defined - in press]

2010
 
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Holtzblatt, Karen, Rondeau, David B. and Holtzblatt, Les (2010): Understanding "cool. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2010 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2010. pp. 3159-3162.

“Design practitioners know that part of their job is to create products and services with usability in mind. Making products and services learnable, efficient and pleasant to use are certainly goals, but every designer dreams of creating something more -- something so great that people crave it, long for it, must have it. Marketers call it "a must have", "compelling", or "insanely great". But most of the rest of us just call it Cool. Over the past several decades, Cool has evolved into a marketing imperative. And so Cool has become like an overarching requirement for many designs, especially in the consumer product space. But Cool is hard to pin down -- there's no accepted way to define it, measure it, or design for it. Like glamour, it is an ineffable yet powerful quality that depends on a host of subtle factors. This SIG creates a forum to go beyond "you know Cool when you see it", collecting and collating a number of concrete examples of Cool and identifying patterns and design principles underlying Cool.”

© All rights reserved Holtzblatt et al. and/or their publisher

2009
 
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Holtzblatt, Karen, Barr, Joshua and Holtzblatt, Les (2009): Driving user centered design into IT organizations: is it possible?. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2009 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2009. pp. 2727-2730.

“In many organizations, actively engaging in user-centered design (UCD) techniques is standard practice when delivering products into the commercial marketplace or to external customers. But in these same organizations -- or in organizations not delivering products to an external customer -- the creation of systems for use by employees is a conversation between IT and the business unit. UCD professionals are either not participating, or they have very limited influence. This SIG creates a forum for people with real-world experience and challenges to discuss how -- and whether it is even possible -- to bring UCD into the IT organization.”

© All rights reserved Holtzblatt et al. and/or ACM Press

2005
 
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Holtzblatt, Karen, Beringer, Joerg and Baker, Lisa (2005): Rapid user centered design techniques: challenges and solutions. In: Proceedings of ACM CHI 2005 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2005. pp. 2037-2038.

“This SIG provides a forum for discussing how user-centered methods, including methods like Contextual Design that include field data gathering, can be modified to support short development time frames and organizations using rapid development methodologies. We share ideas for how to get field data into the fast-paced development process, discuss the tradeoffs that can reasonably be made, and talk about techniques for working closely with developers so they value the influx of customer field data. We start by sharing our experiences, and then lead participants through discussions of their key challenges to generate solutions. We record our collective knowledge for the CHI community.”

© All rights reserved Holtzblatt et al. and/or ACM Press

 
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Holtzblatt, Karen (2005): Innovating organizational processes: a practical approach. In: Proceedings of OZCHI05, the CHISIG Annual Conference on Human-Computer Interaction 2005. pp. 1-8.

“Businesses' business is to stay in business -- to create value for customers while creating jobs and revenue for employees and stakeholders. Government can also be thought of as a "business" -- government must create value for citizens by providing services and managing government operations efficiently. Behind good government and good business are processes supported by systems that work for the people running organizations. When processes and systems get in the way, organizations cannot deliver value -- and they frustrate employees, customers, and citizens alike.”

© All rights reserved Holtzblatt and/or his/her publisher

 
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Holtzblatt, Karen (2005): Customer-centered design for mobile applications. In Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 9 (4) pp. 227-237.

2004
 
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Holtzblatt, Karen, Wendell, Jessamyn Burns and Wood, Shelley (2004): Rapid Contextual Design: A How-to Guide to Key Techniques for User-Centered Design (Interactive Technologies). Morgan Kaufmann

 Cited in the following chapter:

» Contextual Design: [/encyclopedia/contextual_design.html]


 
2001
 
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Holtzblatt, Karen (2001): Contextual Design: Experience in Real Life. In: Oberquelle, Horst, Oppermann, Reinhard and Krause, Jürgen (eds.) Mensch and Computer 2001 March 5-8, 2001, Bad Honnef, Germany. .

 
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Holtzblatt, Karen (2001): Inventing the future. In Communications of the ACM, 44 (3) pp. 108-110.

1999
 
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Holtzblatt, Karen (1999): Introduction to special section on contextual design. In Interactions, 6 (1) pp. 30-31.

 
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Beyer, Hugh R. and Holtzblatt, Karen (1999): Contextual design. In Interactions, 6 (1) pp. 32-42.

 
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Holtzblatt, Karen (1999): Contextual Design: From Customer Data to Implementation. In: 4th IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering RE 99 7-11 June, 1999, Limerick, Ireland. pp. 1-.

1998
 
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Beyer, Hugh R. and Holtzblatt, Karen (1998): Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems. San Francisco, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers

 Cited in the following chapters:

» Contextual Design: [/encyclopedia/contextual_design.html]

» Semiotics: [/encyclopedia/semiotics_and_human-computer_interaction.html]


 
1997
 
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Beyer, Hugh R. and Holtzblatt, Karen (1997): Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems (Interactive Technologies). Morgan Kaufmann

 Cited in the following chapter:

» Contextual Design: [/encyclopedia/contextual_design.html]


 
1996
 
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Beyer, Hugh R. and Holtzblatt, Karen (1996): Contextual Techniques Starter Kit. In Interactions, 3 (6) pp. 44-50.

1995
 
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Beyer, Hugh R. and Holtzblatt, Karen (1995): Apprenticing with the Customer. In Communications of the ACM, 38 (5) pp. 45-52.

 Cited in the following chapter:

» Contextual Design: [/encyclopedia/contextual_design.html]


 
1994
 
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Holtzblatt, Karen (1994): If We're a Team, Why Don't We Act Like One?. In Interactions, 1 (3) pp. 17-20.

“The author addresses difficulties in communicating effectively within design teams and outlines creative techniques to overcome these barriers in design conversations.”

© All rights reserved Holtzblatt and/or Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

1993
 
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Holtzblatt, Karen and Beyer, Hugh R. (1993): Making Customer-Centered Design Work for Teams. In Communications of the ACM, 36 (10) pp. 92-103.

 Cited in the following chapter:

» Contextual Design: [/encyclopedia/contextual_design.html]


 
 
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Holtzblatt, Karen and Jones, Sandra (1993): Contextual Inquiry: A Participatory Technique for System Design. In: Namioka, Aki and Schuler, Doug (eds.). "Participatory Design: Principles and Practice". Hillsdale, NJ, USA: Lawrence Earlbaumpp. 177-210

“This article is the first published description of Contextual Inquiry. It describes the process, including three of the four interviewing principles, the interpretation session, and affinity diagrams”

© All rights reserved Holtzblatt and Jones and/or Lawrence Earlbaum

 Cited in the following chapter:

» Contextual Design: [/encyclopedia/contextual_design.html]


 
 
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Beyer, Hugh R. and Holtzblatt, Karen (1993): Contextual Design: Toward a Customer-Centered Development Process. In: Software Development 93 Spring Proceedings February, 1993, Santa Clara, CA, USA. .

 Cited in the following chapter:

» Contextual Design: [/encyclopedia/contextual_design.html]


 
1990
 
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Wixon, Dennis, Holtzblatt, Karen and Knox, Stephen T. (1990): Contextual Design: An Emergent View of System Design. In: Carrasco, Jane and Whiteside, John (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 90 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference 1990, Seattle, Washington,USA. pp. 329-336.

“We offer an introduction to contextual design as an emergent method for building effective systems. Contextual design addresses a number of the inadequacies in previous methods by emphasizing: interview methods conducted in the context of the user's work, codesigning with the user, building an understanding of work in context, and summarizing conclusions through out the research. We contrast this design method to usability engineering and artifact examination.”

© All rights reserved Wixon et al. and/or ACM Press

1988
 
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Holtzblatt, Karen, Jones, Sandy and Good, Michael (1988): Articulating the Experience of Transparency: An Example of Field Research Techniques. In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 20 (2) pp. 45-47.

“Over the past two years, our field research with users has indicated that elements of an application design can disrupt users' work. Understanding how applications disrupt users' work has helped us to articulate the meaning of interface transparency. Interface transparency and related concepts have previously been explored from theoretical perspectives, but have not been grounded in user data. The relationship between the user's work and interface transparency is a key element of our understanding. Disruptive systems distract users from their task. Systems can disrupt users by fragmenting the task into elements which do not match the user's view of the task. Insufficient functionality and awkward interface mechanisms for a particular task also disrupt users. We need to understand users' work in much richer detail than we do now in order to build systems that assist them with that work.”

© All rights reserved Holtzblatt et al. and/or ACM Press

 
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Whiteside, John, Bennett, John and Holtzblatt, Karen (1988): Usability Engineering: Our Experience and Evolution. In: Helander, Martin and Landauer, Thomas K. (eds.). "Handbook of Human Computer Interaction". North Holland

 Cited in the following chapter:

» Contextual Design: [/encyclopedia/contextual_design.html]


 
 
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Whiteside, John, Bennett, John and Holtzblatt, Karen (1988): Usability Engineering: Our experience and Evolution. In: Helander, Martin and Prabhu, Prasad V. (eds.). "Handbook of human-computer interactio". pp. 791-817

 Cited in the following chapter:

» Usability Evaluation: [/encyclopedia/usability_evaluation.html]


 
 
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Changes to this page (author)

12 Oct 2011: Modified
31 Mar 2011: Modified
31 Mar 2011: Modified
31 Mar 2011: Modified
31 Mar 2011: Modified
31 Mar 2011: Modified
02 Nov 2010: Modified
06 Oct 2010: Modified
30 Sep 2010: Modified
17 Aug 2009: Modified
17 Aug 2009: Modified
17 Aug 2009: Modified
31 May 2009: Modified
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23 Jun 2007: Added
28 Apr 2003: Added

Page Information

Page maintainer: The Editorial Team
URL: http://interaction-design.org/references/authors/karen_holtzblatt.html

Publication statistics

Pub. period:1988-2011
Pub. count:24
Number of co-authors:15



Co-authors

Number of publications with 3 favourite co-authors:

Hugh R. Beyer:8
Les Holtzblatt:2
John Whiteside:2

 

 

Productive colleagues

Karen Holtzblatt's 3 most productive colleagues in number of publications:

Dennis Wixon:43
Michael Good:27
John Whiteside:17
 
 
 
Jun 20

“ ...that strange new zone between medium and message. That zone we call the interface ”

-- Steven Johnson, 1997

 
 

Featured chapter

Read the fascinating history of Wearable Computing, told by its father, Steve Mann

Read Steve's chapter !

 
 

Latest books

The Social Design of Technical Systems: Building technologies for communities
by Brian Whitworth and Adnan Ahmad

 
Start reading

The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Ed.
by Mads Soegaard and Rikke Friis Dam

 
Start reading
 
 

Help us help you!

 
 
 
 
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