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Contextual Design is a state-of-the-art approach to designing products directly from a designer's understanding of how the customer works. Great product ideas come from the marriage of a designer's detailed understanding of a customer's need and his or her in-depth understanding of the possibilities introduced by technology. The best product designs result when the product's designers are involved in collecting and interpreting customer data and appreciate what real people need. Contextual Design gives designers the tools to do just that.
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Beyer et al. (1999) studied this question.
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