Contextual Task Analysis

In the lesson Usability Engineering Lifecycle Model, we introduced you to the concept of contextual task analysis and why it is significant. In this lesson, you will learn a step-by-step technique, which we are calling the sample technique, to perform contextual task analysis on the requirements we gathered from the user profiling technique.

Sample technique

This technique consists of 10 steps, but the whole process can be classified into three stages. These stages are:

• Gather background information
• Collect and analyze data from contextual observation/interviews
• Construct current user task organization model

These are the 10 steps that a usability engineer will have to perform:

1. Review requirement specifications: This first step is optional. If you, as the usability expert, have joined the team after requirements have been specified and are not familiar with them, then it’s a good practice to go through the requirements specifications document to get an overall idea of the user requirements and tasks.

2. Meet with project team members: In order to get an even clearer idea of the tasks that the product is intended to automate, conduct meetings and interviews with project team members. Project team members may include developers, managers, analysts, etc. Getting their perspectives will help usability engineers understand how the technical team is planning to achieve task automation.

3. Meet with user representatives: Conduct meetings and interviews with user representatives to have a user-oriented perspective on the tasks. User representatives are indirect users such as user managers, subject matter experts, user group leaders, etc.

4. Identify and document key actors and use cases: Based on the previous three steps and user profiles (the ones we created in the last lesson), identify a subset of key actorsMajor user categories and use casesMajor types of user tasks from the complete set. The complete set may contain a huge number of potential actors and use cases. At this point in the UEL cycle, it may not be an efficient and practical approach to study each category exhaustively. Hence, the purpose of this step is to select a subset that can represent the whole scope of the project.

5. Conduct contextual observation/interviews: This is the most important step of contextual task analysis. Usability experts observe and interact with actual users in their actual work environment while they are performing real work. This helps the experts to not only analyze the user’s tasks, but also gain context of the user’s overall job.

6. Document work environment analysis: In this step, document your analysis about the work environment in forms of physical work environment and socio-cultural work environment. Then define system interface implications based on these work environments.

   • Physical work environment: This includes descriptions like whether it’s a close working area or an open one, what lighting is available, noise level, heat, etc. For example, for a system to be used in a police station, the following analysis could be made regarding physical work environment:

     • The interior of the police station is gloomy and dark.
     • Walls are neutral and dark colored.
     • Walls are covered with random reminders and notices.

     The following interface implications could be considered:

     • Light colors and pleasant graphics should be used.
     • The interface tone should be positive and helpful. Rather than stressful and penalty oriented.

   • Socio-culture work environment: This includes details about teamwork, inter-user tasks, and interaction among users. In the above case, the following analysis could be made regarding a police station’s socio-culture work environment:

     • Lack of trust among police officers and prisoners.
     • Lack of communication and help for lower-level stuff.

     The user interface could have the following implications to support the socio-culture work environment:

     • System should be self-explanatory.
     • Ease of use and ease of learning principles must be followed.

7. Conduct task scenarios: In this step, task scenarios, also called instances of use cases, are constructed. Task scenarios follow the exact same procedures that users follow to perform a task. The purpose is to record the steps along with the sequence of these tasks.

8. Document task analysis: The next step is to document and update all observations and analysis obtained from task scenarios.

9. Identify basic user tasks: Once all the required data has been collected, conduct a meeting with all project team members and review the collected data. At this stage, the data is in the form of separate lists/reports for each activity like work environment analysis, task scenarios, etc. The purpose of this task is to create a single list of all tasks that can cover the user’s overall job.

10. Construct a current user task organization model: A current user task organization model reflects the user tasks in the form of a hierarchy where the tasks that form a work flow or logically similar tasks are grouped together. The first attempt is to design this model based on the basic tasks identified in the last step. Then, take the input from users, i.e. ask the users to modify the model according to their understanding. Each user may have a different model than others. Once the users have sorted/modified the models, compare, and summarize them to create one final model that captures all similarities.