Contextual application design in digital media is the adaptation of the contextual design process developed by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt,[1] in the mobile software space, taking advantage of the measurability of the media, context awareness technologies in mobile devices, aggregation and analytics systems, to create a user-centered design process where developers aggregate data from users' real-world behavior and patterns, and applying these findings into a final product.
Contextual application design has primarily been used to create mobile applications that may deliver valuable insights based on cross referencing digital content with physical context, such as the experience delivered by Google Now.
In mobile applications, a key aspect of the technique is detailed logging of their physical environment factors (factors), typically achieved by logging mobile sensor data or data from a contextual awareness SDK, combined with their in-app activity and interaction.
The purpose of the data analysis is to reveal patterns and the structure across distinct interactions.
Visions are a variety of new product concepts for different usage scenarios based on the data collected.