Often, the same application can be incredibly helpful or incredibly frustrating depending on the environmental context. That's why I find contextual inquiry to be a particularly promising methodology-- it explores the use of the application within its most common context. Motorola does something similar in their usability testing of new phones. They change the tasks and parameters of the test depending on if the user is in a "bedroom," "living room," or "busy street"-- all simulated environments to explore how users respond to the same product in different environmental contexts.

Although I agree with this statement, I want to play devil's advocate. If a designer integrates themselves too deeply with the needer group, is it possible that they lose the objectivity and creative eye of looking at a problem from afar? In other words, isn't there the chance that they get lost in the weeds, instead of assessing the bigger picture?

I recently read about a method called card sorting. Although not taught in SI 622, it's an interesting research method that counters this very problem. Users are given a set of cards with labels that correspond to components of an application or other technology/product. They are then asked to group those cards into categories, according to their natural mappings and logical intuition. Each user comes up with a different set of groupings, but often the UX researcher can find similarities among the users' rationale for those groupings.

I used to think that most products should make you feel some sort of positive emotion, so that users feel an attachment to the technology. But I've found that guilting the user for unsubscribing to a newsletter or, in my friend's case, deactivating a Facebook account, can be surprisingly effective. The user really develops a relationship with the product, and that relationship consists of both positive and negative emotions to ensure that the relationship continues

I'm actually really curious to see how the touch gestures we've grown so accustomed to on phones and tablets will transfer to mixed/virtual reality. Interaction designers have the chance to be incredibly creative when they are no longer constrained to a 2D plane.

This applies to corporate culture as well. Depending on the corporate culture, some ideas are considered better than others, regardless of their true merit. For example, a company of majority programmers may find a highly technical solution more exciting, while a company composed of mainly artists would prioritize more visual solutions.

This reminds me quite a lot of gamification. For example, the design of buy-ten-get-one-free punch cards from coffee places and ice cream shops reframe customer goals based on how they're designed.

Starbucks uses gold stars, sending their users push notifications through a mobile application to complete the streak. Biggby Coffee, on the other hand, uses a Biggby Card that's swiped at checkout. The Biggby Card provides no way of knowing how close you are to a free drink.

Because Starbucks tracks user progress, and users tend to be more goal-oriented, Starbucks' strategy would be more lucrative.

This reading had plenty of unique examples, encouraging innovation among designers. However, it's important to still keep in mind the power of the familiar. Although a star icon could mean different things in different contexts, its position on the page is an indicator of its meaning. One star in the upper right hand corner indicates a favorite, whereas four gold stars and one outlined star indicates ratings. A hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) may make no sense at the bottom of the page, but in the top left corner it's obviously a menu.

Retention is incredibly important to any business strategy-- but the business and product development approaches are both very different. During my time at Ross, loyalty programs and memberships were touted as the hail maries of retention, mainly because they're easier to measure. Obviously, designers and product developers have more faith in their actual product. I believe both perspectives are necessary, and must support each other, in order to ensure sustainable success

Kolko speaks quite a bit about the importance of context, but in my experience, all too many UX designers/researchers conduct usability testing in a formalized lab setting. How can we, as designers, convince management of the importance of contextual inquiry and other methodologies that involve observation within a more natural work environment?

Saying that "designers can begin to predict what these hypothetical people will do in novel situations" is rather misguided. I believe research is essential to understanding how users approach technologies. When the designer forgets about the end user, and only extrapolates how they would respond to a particular instance, they are losing the fundamentals of user-oriented designer.