Thinking from scenario to contextual inquiry

I am reading the book, "Making Use", which is written by the famous Carroll. I just read a little of it, more like a short introduction of the concept of scenario, and that just makes me can't help but compare it with another book I read, "Contextual Design".

I notice that Carroll use the phrase, "use oriented", which makes me think for quite a while. What does it mean? To me, it seems like that he emphasizes on how user use artefacts to do things. However, base on what I learned from the concept of scenario, this should not be the case, because, the reason of introducing scenario, is to better understand the environment in which users use the artefacts. And that is actually what Carroll says in the book, he mentioned the importance of the mutual relationship between information technology and the environment where it is being used, although, not explicitly. So, that to me sounds more like the emphasis of "context" I read in the "Contextual Design".

Due to this suggestion, I start to think about another question, the context I feel in Carroll's book, is it the same as Beyer's book? If it is not, what is the difference?

As stated in "Contextual Design", context includes every element that is related to the users' work, papers, documents, even the little things that could remind the users how to carry on their work. It's a very broad scale, which needs observers, or more precisely, the one who acts as the apprentice in the "Master/Apprentice" model, spend large quantity of time observing, raising questions, and discussing with "Master" while he's working in his own way. Comparing this to what Carroll said in his book, his definition of context seems to be much less detailed. It seems that scenarios focus on the phenomena, leaving the underlying reasons unexplored. It focus on "things the actors do", "things that happen to them", "changes in the circumstances of the setting". So, as a scenrio, it describes the user's environment, user's behaviours, or sequence of actions, the consequences to them, and if any, to the environment around them. While the context inquiry, the core concept in "Contextual Design" probes the details of user's behaviours: why do they do something? Not just describes it.

I think that's what scenario lack of, even though, it does include the consideration of context and describe it, but that, in many cases is not enough. Just as what is mentioned in the book of "Contextual Design", even one single simple behaviour could be interpreted in several different ways. You need to ask and discuss it with the users about it, to validate your interpretation, and finally, to get the right understanding of users' behaviour. Just telling a story is simply not enough, in my opinion. However, this of cause much better than the way that leaves the "context" behind.

Another thing I'm convinced by the book of "Contextual Design" is, though it did not mention it explicitly, the mutual relationship between the designers (who intensely observe users' work) and the users. On one hand, as mentioned above, asking, explaining, discussing could let designers gain a much more comprehensive and solid understanding of the users; on the other hand, the users can structure his own work in his mind by explaining it to the designers, which could bring new thoughts/ideas that might improve his own work, and that's where new ideas of design come from. So, in my opinion, is like a mutually enhancement between the designers and the users, to reach a more confound understanding of the work they both focus on.

But how will they transfer the data from their observation to the design ideas, or before that, how will they present the result of their observation? This is the question I should find out as I read on.

Update: I find that Carroll's book mentioned Beyer's "contextual design" in his last chapter: scenario dilemma. It would be interesting to see what would he say there. I'll check it later on.