Task Analysis

Task analysis can be defined as the study of what a user is re q u i red to do, in terms of actions and/or cognitive processes, to achieve a task objective. The idea is that task analysis provides some stru c t u re for the description of tasks or activities, which then makes it easier to describe how activities fit together, and to explore what the implications of this may be for the design of products. This can be particularly useful when considering the design of interfaces to products, and how users interact with them. The following is a very simple introduction to some of the concepts of task analysis, and is illustrated by a design example. For a m o re detailed introduction to the use of task analysis a good source of i n f o rmation is Kirwan and Ainsworth (1992)