Summary of Task Analysis, social aspects, alternative approaches IST Olivier Georgeon April 27 th

Agenda of the presentation Task Analysis – Data gathering – Formal task description Social aspects of users Alternative approaches – Non goal-driven – Co-evolution 2

Task Analysis 3

Task Analysis : Data Gathering Lots of task analysis methods None completely satisfactory Best solution is to employ a variety of methods – Questionnaires and Interviews – Observational studies – Examination of competing, or similar products – Literature review – Unstructured user input. Spontaneous feedback 4

Task Analysis: Formal task description KLM – V. easy to use, fast, simple, clear, timing, can be tightened – For expert behavior only, can’t do dual tasks, learning Hierarchical Task Analysis – Easy to use, fast, simple, clear – For expert behavior, dual tasks not represented, no learning, cannot be tightened, no timing GOMS – Easy to use, fast, simple, less clear – For expert behavior only. Can’t do dual tasks easily. Require precise goals. 5

GOMS 6 Goal 1 (or Task) Goal 2 Goal 3 Method 1Method 2 Selection rule 1 Op 1 Op 2 Goal 2 Op 3 Method 3 Op 4 Op 5 Goal 4 Op 6 Time …

Social aspects 7

From sociological studies Diffusion of Social Responsibility Complementarities between individuals Social loafing Majority/minority effect Risk taking effect Cognitive dissonance – Who you are / Who you want to be / who you want people think you are. 8

Prisoner Dilemma Interactions can be summarised with payoff matrix People prefer high payoffs Good systems create payoffs to encourage the behavior they want There are ways to encourage good behavior – Make players public – Make their history public – Make payoff matrix public – Payoff what you want to encourage 9

Social Media Principles Who you are – Personalization. Home page. Who you knows – Browse network What you do – Provide activity stream 10

Alternative approaches 11

Not always goal driven Users are free and do not fit a pre-defined model Users follow feeling and emotions User behavior evolve overt time New usages emerge New area for human behavior research 12

Evolutionist process 13 DesignUse

Post-hoc Evaluation When you can’t do gold standard of users and their tasks – Might not know: users, tasks, context, task frequency, how things fit together, etc. When you are driven by new technology There are tools for detailed activity analysis Human behavior analysis is still an active area of research. 14

Conclusion Know your user's task – Data gathering – Formal task description Social aspects – Know your user's social context and motivations Alternative approaches – Non goal-driven – Co-evolution 15