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Much of this content is based on Designing for the Digital Age, by Kim Goodwin (2009)
Context scenarios are detailed stories of ideal experiences for personas of an undefined, future product or system. Context scenarios are high level and optimistic, focusing on ideal system behavior in situations that will happen. Though context scenarios provide the beginnings of considering the actual design of a product or system, context scenarios avoid providing specific solutions and implementation details. Instead, context scenarios focus on the information and actions personas ideally expect from the system based on their needs and behaviors. By outlining various activities for personas in this way, a clear set of requirements can be developed and prioritized.
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- an optimistic, imagined future system that serves Allison's goals, needs and behaviors in the context of a realistic activity that she regularly performs
- the future system need not be described in detail or realistic - at this stage, the focus is on meeting user needs, following good design principles and raising questions about how user needs can be met (not necessarily answering these questions)
- a story with a beginning, end and an idea of how long the scene lasted
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Summarized from Designing for the Digital Age, by Kim Goodwin (2009), pp. 308-320
- Be true to the persona and workflow data we have
- Make sure your context scenario describes an activity that your persona would regularly do and reflects how your persona would behave at each step of the activity.
- Describe the future, not the present
- Imagine a future system that would provide the persona with an ideal user experience.
- Don't worry too much about the feasibility or details of the system you are imagining, focus more on meeting the needs of the persona.
- If your ideas for a system raise unanswered questions - that's good! Record the questions and make sure whatever you are proposing addresses a need, goal or behavior of the persona.
- Craft a story with a beginning and an end
- Start with a triggering event (i.e. need to create a syllabus for a new course, etc.)
- Answer who, what, when, where, why and how
- who: the persona and any others they may interact with.
- what: data (information, resources, etc) exchanged between the persona, other people and the system as well as actions the persona takes as a result.
- when: some indication of whether the persona's activity is common, how long it lasts and whether there are interruptions.
- where: the setting(s) in which the system is used.
- why: the persona's reasons for performing the activity and motivation for various behaviors along the way.
- how: the process a persona follows to complete the activity.
- Use the right level of detail
- Provide design direction, avoid design specifications (don't worry about technical implementation details)
- Start with an optimistic mindset
- Assume the interface is magic. At this stage, focus on how the persona's needs can ideally be met by the system and feel free to use your imagination!
- Apply important design principles - the following are general design principles to keep in mind, but play a larger role later in the process (no need to focus on these too much):
- Do no harm, whether that's actual injury or just wasting someone's time.
- Provide all the tools your persona uses at the same time in the same place.
- Don't ask for confirmation of actions; make them possible to undo instead.
- Don't interrupt users to report events they don't care about.
- Make errors impossible; don't offer choices that won't work.
- Don't ask users to remember things if you can avoid it.
- Remember and learn from user behavior.
- Make reasonable assumptions instead of forcing users to customize or make a lot of unnecessary choices.
- Don't confuse what users will always do with what they might occasionally do.
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Writing the context scenario
If you have not already done so, please refer to the example and guidelines on how to write a good context scenario above. If you have any questions, feel free to email us.
Use the Context Scenario Form to submit your context scenario. To avoid any accidental loss of your work, please compose your context scenario offline and cut-and-paste it into the form.
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