Task Analysis
Janice (Ginny) Redish and Dennis Wixon

1. Introduction
   • Overview - What is in this chapter
   • Defining task analysis
     • Why define task analysis
     • Different authors have different definitions
       • Many techniques (e.g. Kirwan & Ainsworth)
       • Entire pre-design process (e.g. Rubenstein & Hersh)
       • One technique to represent specific types of data (e.g. Olson & Moran)
     • Our definition (cf. Hackos & Redish) - an integral part of the entire design process, done at same time and with user analysis and environment analysis, may include many ways to gather and represent data
   • Placing task analysis in the development process
     • Relevant at all stages
     • Focus, granularity, and methods change as questions change in different stages of the development process
     • This chapter focuses primarily on pre-design task analysis for requirements specification and for developing use cases and scenarios
     • Brief discussion of task analysis as an evaluation technique at later stages with references to other chapters of this book and to other sources
   • A theoretical framework for task analysis
     • Very brief historical overview
     • Contemporary task analysis theory
2. Planning for a task analysis (issues to consider)
   • Planning for task analysis throughout a project
     • Getting into the project plan
     • Planning for different data at different stages
   • Understanding your team's design space and needs
     • Upgrading an existing product in same medium
     • Changing business processes or medium (from legacy to GUI or to web)
     • Developing something totally new
       • For a niche market
       • For a very broad public market
   • Understanding your team's issues and focus
     • Architecture? Interface? Information needs? All of these?
     • Planning your deliverables for your audiences - and the impact that has on your task analysis
       • Understanding and working with constraints (resources, time)
       • Getting buy-in beforehand
       • Involving other team members
     • Being open to what you hadn't planned on
   • Starting with the user's goals
     • Task analysis as device independent versus device dependent
     • Importance of working from goal analysis
   • Considering different types of task analyses
     • Workflow analysis (process analysis, cross-user analysis)
     • Job analysis
     • High-level task analysis
     • Procedural analysis (detailed steps and decisions)
     • Applying task analysis to specific situations, for example, games
   • Deciding on the appropriate level of granularity for the design space and needs
3. Collecting task analysis data
   • Selecting users and environments
   • Setting up site visits
   • Conducting site visits
     • Observing users
       • When they choose the tasks
       • When you choose the tasks
     • Interviewing users
       • While they are doing the task
       • About the task but apart from the task
   • Collecting field data in the lab
     • When and why you might do this
     • How to do this
4. Analyzing and presenting the data
   • Issues to consider
     • Matching analyses and representations to
       • your team's design space and needs
       • the issues and focus
       • your audiences
       • the team's time constraints
     • Deciding whether to keep users separate or combine data into composite pictures
     • Finding ways to represent the data that are meaningful and useful to both users and developers
     • Finding ways to represent the user's world as it is today and also to move to requirements for the user's world as it will be with this product
   • Ways to present task analysis data for requirements
     • Merging task analysis data with user analysis (personas) and other information (on users' environments, users' technology, etc.)
     • Scenarios of use (goal analyses)
     • Flowcharts (before and after; different types and levels of specificity)
     • Use tables
     • Use cases and variations
     • Other presentations of task analysis data
   • Making sure your task analysis gets used
     • Relating task analysis to specific elements of design
     • Relating empirical data to the creative and artistic aspects of design
5. Evaluating your task analysis
   • Reviewing what you did to improve for next time
   • Evaluating the effectiveness of task analysis on the final product