The Handbook of Task Analysis for Human-Computer Interaction

Dan Diaper, Neville Stanton

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781135628055
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Industrial Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

A comprehensive review of the current state of research and use of task analysis for Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), this multi-authored and diligently edited handbook offers the best reference source available on this diverse subject whose foundations date to the turn of the last century. Each chapter begins with an abstract and is cross-referen

V
Today and Tomorrow

Cooperation or Conflict? was the subtitle of Easterbrook’s (1993) book on computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). Part V of this handbook represents a conflict resolution between its editors. Neville Stanton wanted a final chapter summarizing and integrating the handbook’s contents; the other editor wasn’t convinced that further summary was needed, nor that integration, at this stage in the history of task analysis, was feasible within the time frame of the handbook’s production. Chapter 28 is their compromise solution—one that both editors are entirely happy with. It focuses primarily on the many, complicated psychological issues associated with task analysis.

Both editors firmly agree that there is a need to highlight the outstanding problems with task analysis and propose how these might be resolved in due course. Hence, the final chapter, chap. 30, which offers suggestions for future directions.

Sandwiched between chapters 28 and 30, chapter 29 presents a persuasive argument for the need to extend task analysis beyond the confines of traditional IT-supported work. The editors can only hope that the chapter’s suggestions will be picked up by researchers in the task analysis community.

Chapter 28
The Psychology of Task Analysis Today

Neville A. Stanton

Task analysis without psychology is like peaches and cream without the peaches: thin stuff. Chapter 28 reviews the psychological basis of most of the handbook’s chapters, along with related issues and problems. It presents an emergent analysis of four themes that arise across the chapters reviewed: (a) data collection, (b) psychological underpinnings, (c) task representation, and (d) the accessibility of task analysis. By providing an introduction to contemporary psychological issues in task analysis, the chapter should be particularly helpful to anyone new to the field.

Chapter 29 Experiences People Value: The New Frontier for Task Analysis

John Karat Clare-Marie Karat, and John Vergo

Neville Stanton’s first reaction upon reading the draft of chapter 29 was that it was “anti-task analysis,” which reflects just how important is this chapter. The authors accuse task analysis of being too firmly rooted in the world of jobs and assert that satisfactory work involves more than the effective and efficient performance of tasks to achieve goals (chap. 1). People treat their leisure and social activities differently from their work ones, and they have different types of goals and very different requirements from those characteristic of the workplace, although they may spend years perfecting their skills at leisure activities. The chapter’s authors are undoubtedly correct that there is a current problem with task analysis in these IT-supported non-job areas of people’s lives, although the editors believe that the problems are not insurmountable but just haven’t yet been adequately addressed by the task analysis community. It is certainly worth looking beyond task analysis, as good design needs to resolve issues other than usability and performance. The authors of this chapter recommend investigating methods normally associated with the arts (such as “the Crit,” as used in the exhibition of works of art) as a way to take into account human desires, needs, and aspirations. This is relatively unfamiliar territory for HCI, but we should be open to new challenges and explore places we have not visited yet.

Chapter 30
Wishing on a sTAr: The Future of Task Analysis

Dan Diaper and Neville A. Stanton

“What a mess!” Although we are utterly confident that the long-term future of task analysis is assured, whatever task analysis might eventually be called, there is a great diversity of theories, concepts, and definitions and of task analysis methods appropriate for different purposes in myriad application domains and project environments. Chapter 30 argues that, across the whole field of task analysis, its practitioners need to come to agreement about basic concepts, terms, theories and so forth, but without compromising the range of application and the flexibility of the methods described in the chapters of this handbook. Development of a task analysis meta-method is suggested as one way forward. Radically, the chapter argues that the core concept of a goal should be abandoned by the task analysis community.

Chapter 30 then addresses the other, equally important, problem with much current task analysis, that of delivering task analyses in understandable, usable, effective, and efficient forms to those in the computing industries who are responsible for designing, producing, and maintaining computer systems.

REFERENCE

Easterbrook, S. (Ed.). (1993). CSCW: Cooperation or conflict? New York: Springer-Verlag.

28
The Psychology of Task Analysis Today

Neville A. Stanton
Brunel University

Throughout this handbook, the authors of chapters have either implicitly or explicitly made reference to psychological theory in development of their task models of human performance. The purpose of this chapter is to review the psychological themes that run through the handbook with the aim of identifying commonality and differences. The psychological theory is definitely the most complex aspect of the book, because the field of research is still developing and there are alternative perspectives. One of the main conflicts identified in the book is the tension between the academic need to present a high fidelity psychological model of human performance and the commercial need develop a just-good-enough model within time and resource constraints. The key to resolving this conflict comes from a hierarchical model of system performance, where the high-fidelity representations of the system may be subsumed under lower fidelity models.

28.1 CHALLENGES FOR TASK ANALYSIS

The purpose of this chapter is to review the state of the art of task analysis from a psychological perspective and based on the contributions to this handbook. As has already been pointed out in the preface, task analysis can mean different things to different people. This has led to a broad range of approaches to the analysis of tasks and the development of underpinning theories. By drawing the essential elements from this range, it is hoped that a coherent overview and guide to the main issues in task analysis will emerge. At the very least, this chapter should provide the reader with a comprehensive assessment of the main issues.

Simplistically, most task analysis involves identifying tasks, collecting task data, analyzing this data so that the tasks are understood, and then producing a documented representation of the analyzed tasks suitable for some engineering purpose. Tasks are analyzed according to some dogma that involves both a theoretical model and a method of analysis. Task analysis in the published literature normally focuses on the collection of data, the dogma, and the form of documentation, although the border between latter two facets may be blurred. Different task analytic techniques might share the same data collection methods but differ in their dogma and/or documentation. This is illustrated in Table 28.1, which compares hierarchical task analysis (HTA; chap. 3), Goals, Operations, Methods, and Selection rules (GOMS; chap. 4), and Interacting Cognitive Sub-systems for Cognitive Task Analysis (ICS-CTA; chap. 15).

TABLE 28.1 Comparison of HTA, GOM...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• List of Contributors
• I: Foundations
• II: IT Industry Perspectives
• III: Human Perspectives
• IV: Computing Perspectives
• V: Today and Tomorrow