ABOUT US
We believe excellence in innovation results from gaining real world perspective.
We strive to be on the forefront of adapting new technology into our lives and products we design for.
Karen Holtzblatt is the visionary behind InContext’s unique user-centered design approach, Contextual Design. Karen’s combination of technological and psychological expertise provides the creative framework for developing innovative designs and design processes.
Recognized as a leader in requirements and design, Karen has pioneered transformative ideas and design approaches throughout her career. Most recently, Karen initiated the Cool Project to explore users’ experience of cool products. Her latest book, Contextual Design: Design for Life, is a complete update of the classic Contextual Design book used in universities and organizations worldwide. The book, co-authored with Contextual Design’s co-creator Hugh Beyer, incorporates the Cool Concepts into Contextual Design, as well as the new Contextual Design Experience Models and ideation techniques inspired by the Cool Concepts.
Karen introduced Contextual Inquiry, now 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 created a revolutionary approach for designing products and systems based on a deep understanding of the user’s world. Contextual Inquiry forms the base of Contextual Design, InContext’s full customer-centered design process.
As a member of ACM SIGCHI (The Association of Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction) Karen was awarded membership to the CHI Academy a gathering of significant contributors and received the first Lifetime Award for Practice for her impact on the field.
Karen co-founded InContext Design in 1992 with Hugh Beyer to use Contextual Design techniques to coach product teams and deliver market data and design solutions to businesses across scores of industries in many countries.
Karen has now launched The Women in Tech Project to understand the work experience of women working for technology companies in an effort to understand why women are leaving the field. While teaching at Stanford University, she developed a framework defining the core factors that influence women’s joy and satisfaction at work. Karen is currently expanding the research and designing interventions for companies in order to address the rampant problem of women leaving high tech.
Karen is also an Adjunct Research Scientist at the University of Maryland’s iSchool (College of Information Studies). At UMD she is collaborating with professors and students and working on The Women in Technology Project.
In addition to being a noted conference speaker, Karen has more than 25 years of teaching experience professionally and in university settings. She holds a doctorate in applied psychology from the University of Toronto.
Karen brings together the best team for your projects.
Meet some of our associates who have worked with her for years.

Wendy Fritzke
Wendy has over 25 years experience in the high-tech industry, working in user-centered design and technical documentation. She has worked with design teams as a senior coach, user researcher, and project manager.

Dave Flotree
Dave was at the Fluke Corporation as a product planner for the company’s touchscreen and test and measurement product families. He left Fluke to pursue user-centered design consulting and engaged startups to well-known Fortune 50 companies. He has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington.

Kelley Wagg
Kelley brings years of experience in marketing and business: product management, requirements definition & competitive analysis. He has worked with hardware and software companies, bringing customer knowledge into organizations. Kelley has a combination M.B.A. and M.S. in Computer Science.

Nancy Fike
Prior to joining InContext, Nancy was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff with Bell Labs where she led teams responsible for the design, development and support of software tools and systems. She has an M.S. in Computer Science from University of Illinois in Urbana, IL
“Working with and training our clients
is the most rewarding part of what we do.”
We use our proven inquiry and design thinking techniques to guide your team to solve your hardest product and organizational challenges

DEREK HOIEM
Derek was a User Researcher and Lead Program Manager at Microsoft designing Visual Studio, Windows, and many other Microsoft products. Derek is an entrepreneur and UX consultant specializing in media and content technology. Derek has a B.S. in Technical Communication from the University of Washington.

Hugh Beyer
Advisor
Long-time collaborator and InContext co-founder, Hugh co-authored the original and new Contextual Design books and advises Karen on new ideas in innovation.
Hugh is now Director of Product at 3D Data Ltd., bringing user-centered design techniques to start-ups.