Tasks, scenarios, sitemaps 21 Feb 2006

Task Analysis (1/3)  Know who is going to use the system  ID tasks that they now perform  ID tasks that they’d like to perform  Where are tasks performed?  How do users communicate with each other? Or do they?

Task Analysis (2/3)  How are tasks learned?  What other tools might be used?  How often are tasks performed?  Are there time constraints?  What happens when things go wrong?

Task Analysis (3/3)  These are the types of questions that your tasks should identify – whether we’re talking about the web sites (group projects) or the design analysis (individual project).  Examples: Common tasks Web tasks

Task research - overview (1/3)  Please try to recall a recent instance where you found important information on the World Wide Web, information that led to a significant action or decision.  Morrison, J.B., Pirolli, P., and Card, S.K. (2001): "A Taxonomic Analysis of What World Wide Web Activities Significantly Impact People's Decisions and Actions." Interactive poster, presented at the Association for Computing Machinery's Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Seattle, March 31 - April (pdf)A Taxonomic Analysis of What World Wide Web Activities Significantly Impact People's Decisions and Actions

Task research - methods (2/3)  Collect: 71%. Search for multiple pieces of information. Goal is specific, but not looking for one particular answer.  Find: 25%. Search for something specific.  Explore: 2%. No specific goal (surfing).  Monitor: 2%. Visit the same site for updated information. Visits triggered by routine behavior, not specific goal.

Task research – reasons (3/3)  Compare/choose: 51%. Evaluate multiple products or answers to make a decision.  Find/acquire: 25%. Get a fact, get a document, find out about a product, download something; specific.  Understand: 24%. Seek understanding of some topic; usually includes locating facts or documents.

Task list for program (1/2)  Write a message Edit, format, spell-check, etc  Send a message Now or later  Receive a message Filter, other auto-actions  Read a message that you have rec’d Filter after reading, mark messages “read”, delete  Identify and ignore spam

Task list for program (2/2)  Save a message to read later  Forward a message to someone else Or many people, with or w/out comment  Send a formatted file with the message  Send the same message to several people To, CC, BCC  Keep an address book Nicknames (aliases), other data

Scenario – overview (1/3)  A description of a person's interaction with a system. It incorporates tasks.  Written in real-world language, not system language

Scenario – example (2/3)  It's Friday afternoon, and Kathy is flying to Atlanta. She doesn't have enough cash to pay for the taxi to the airport, and she's running late.  She goes to the local ATM and identifies herself.  She specifies that she wants $100 from savings. She'd like the money in $20 notes to minimize the chance the taxi driver won’t have correct change.  She wants a printed receipt.

Scenario – class (3/3)  Scenarios should be built for each persona

Sitemaps (1/2)  Organizing content – the backbone of your information architecture  It is human tendency to organize things to make them easier to retrieve

Sitemaps (2/2)  How to learn how people think about your content Observe Visit competitor web sites Evaluate server logs Card sorts

Card sort (1/2)  List of information by topic  Cards (or post-it notes for affinity diagram)  Group  Name the group

Card sort (1/2)  Look for patterns – dominant organization scheme  Adjust for consistency  ID categories that don’t match May be features May just be oddball  Test the resulting patterns

Card sort (2/2)  Category refinement = taxonomy  Examples: