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Task Analysis in User-Centered Design, Lecture notes of Systems Design

West Visayas State University (WVSU)Systems Design

The process of task analysis in user-centered design. It covers user analysis, task analysis, and domain analysis. User analysis involves understanding the user's characteristics and situation, while task analysis involves identifying the tasks involved in the problem and decomposing them into subtasks. Domain analysis discovers the elements of the domain and how they're related to each other. The document also provides steps on how to do user and task analysis, including user interviews and direct observation. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the context and environment in which the user performs the task.

Typology: Lecture notes

2020/2021

Available from 04/02/2022

gwen-hermo
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Lesson 3.1
Task Analysis
TASK ANALYSIS
➢ the process of collecting information about users and their tasks will be tackled, which is the
first step in user-centered design.
• User Analysis - Knowing about the user means not just their individual characteristics,
but also their situation.
- In what environment will they use your software?
- What else might be distracting their attention?
- What is the social context?
o Multiple Classes of Users - groups are defined by the roles that the user plays in
the system & characteristics
- You have to decide which user groups are important for your problem, and do a
user analysis for every class.
o Persona - summarizing user classes is to give each user class a fictional
representative, with typical characteristics and often a little back story.
- help focus attention on typical members of the user class, rather than extremes.
- encourage having more empathy for a user class that’s very different from your
own
- two parts: the stereotypical part, and the "color" we added to make it a real
person.
o How to do User Analysis
→ find some representative users and talk to them
→ straightforward characteristics can be obtained by a questionnaire
→ Details about context and environment can be obtained by interviewing
users directly, or even better, observing them going about their business, in
their natural habitat.
• Task Analysis - figuring out what tasks are involved in the problem; task should be
expressed as a goal: what needs to be done, not how.
- Hierarchical decomposition - Think about the overall problem you’re trying to solve.
That’s really the top-level task. Then decompose it into a set of subtasks, or subgoals, that
are part of satisfying the overall goal.
o Essential Part of Task Analysis
→ Once you’ve identified a list of tasks, fill in the details on each one
→ The goal is just the name of the task
→ The preconditions are the conditions that must be satisfied before it’s
reasonable or possible to attempt the task.
→ Decompose the task into subtasks, individual steps involved in doing the
task.
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Lesson 3.

Task Analysis

TASK ANALYSIS

➢ the process of collecting information about users and their tasks will be tackled, which is the first step in user-centered design.

  • User Analysis - Knowing about the user means not just their individual characteristics, but also their situation.
  • In what environment will they use your software?
  • What else might be distracting their attention?
  • What is the social context? o Multiple Classes of Users - groups are defined by the roles that the user plays in the system & characteristics - You have to decide which user groups are important for your problem, and do a user analysis for every class. o Persona - summarizing user classes is to give each user class a fictional representative , with typical characteristics and often a little back story. - help focus attention on typical members of the user class, rather than extremes. - encourage having more empathy for a user class that’s very different from your own - two parts: the stereotypical part, and the "color" we added to make it a real person. o How to do User Analysis → find some representative users and talk to them → straightforward characteristics can be obtained by a questionnaire → Details about context and environment can be obtained by interviewing users directly, or even better, observing them going about their business, in their natural habitat.
  • Task Analysis - figuring out what tasks are involved in the problem; task should be expressed as a goal : what needs to be done , not how.
  • Hierarchical decomposition - Think about the overall problem you’re trying to solve. That’s really the top-level task. Then decompose it into a set of subtasks, or subgoals, that are part of satisfying the overall goal. o Essential Part of Task Analysis → Once you’ve identified a list of tasks, fill in the details on each one → The goal is just the name of the task → The preconditions are the conditions that must be satisfied before it’s reasonable or possible to attempt the task. → Decompose the task into subtasks , individual steps involved in doing the task.

→ Questions you should ask about each task: ▪ Where is the task performed? ▪ What is the environment like? Noisy, dirty, dangerous? ▪ How often is the task performed? ▪ What are its time or resource constraints? ▪ How is the task learned? ▪ What can go wrong? (Exceptions, errors, emergencies) ▪ Who else is involved in the task? o How to do a Task Analysis? → user interviews and direct observation → observe how users currently perform the task

  • Domain Analysis - discovers the elements of the domain and how they’re related to each other. o Three Steps In Drawing The Domain Diagram → Identify the entities of the domain - the things that are involved → Determine the relationships between the entities that matter to your problem → Add multiplicities showing the sizes of entity sets and relationships - ▪ Multiplicity of an entity set - the number of members of that set in the system ▪ Multiplicity of a relation - the number of targets per source

→ Techniques for making user and task analysis more effective: ▪ Contextual Inquiry - combines interviewing and observation , in the user’s actual work environment, discussing actual work products.

  • fosters strong collaboration between the designers and the users. ▪ Participatory design - users directly on the design team – participating in the task analysis, proposing design ideas, helping with evaluation. - Target users have much deeper domain knowledge than the design team Summary
  • User analysis identifies the user classes
  • Task analysis discovers their tasks
  • Domain analysis finds the entities and relationships in the domain Analysis
  • User analysis
  • Identify the characteristics of your user population, as we discussed in lecture. If you have multiple user classes, identify each one.
  • Task analysis
  • Determine the tasks of the problem you've chosen
  • analyze their characteristics, and answer the general questions about tasks we asked in lecture.
  • Think about other questions you should ask that might be relevant to your particular domain. You should find and analyze at least 3 high-level tasks. For example, in a recipe site, the most central, interesting tasks might be editing a recipe, finding a recipe and using a recipe (to actually cook). If you can't find 3 interesting tasks, then your problem may be too small to serve as a good project, and you should rethink it. Every task should have a goal and subtasks. Some tasks may also need preconditions, exceptions, time constraints, and frequency of use
  • Domain analysis
  • Determine the important entities and relationships of your problem domain, and show them in a diagram (domain diagram). Include multiplicities where important. Include text that defines entities or relations that aren't obvious.