Task Analysis

Task analysis is a research method that informs design by identifying and prioritizing the tasks that users will perform with a product, website, or service.

Task analysis begins with assumptions about user profiles, gleaned from initial market research. Throughout the design cycle, researchers validate the profiles and eventually create personas, or composite individuals, who ground the design effort in “real users.”

For each profile, the task analysis process builds:

A task inventory—All observed tasks and activities
A task hierarchy—Hierarchical relationships observed among activities
A goal hierarchy—Hierarchical relationships among purposes underlying the activities
Task flow—Temporal relationships among activities

Innovation and task re-engineering occurs when designers consider the goals behind existing tasks and release inappropriate or unnecessary constraints.

From these inputs, designers create a navigation structure and interaction design for the prioritized (and potentially re-engineered) tasks.