The closer experience designers are to their audience, the more successful their design will be. Contextual inquiry provides one of the best opportunities for designers to spend quality time with actual users and build an emotional connection that will be reflected in the design. The methodology provides a realistic picture of how the user currently interacts with a product or service, as opposed to opining on the use of a hypothetical product.

Although there is a practical limit to the number of people that can be interviewed, and that number is often in the low tens for many projects, the volume and value of detailed, nuanced data that gets collected is significant.