Scribd
Upload
8 views4 pages

204 - Hierarchical Task Analysis HCI

Uploaded by

tmanokam100
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
8 views4 pages

204 - Hierarchical Task Analysis HCI

Uploaded by

tmanokam100
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

1

00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,790


Cognitive task analysis advocates building models of

2
00:00:02,790 --> 00:00:06,030
human reasoning and decision-making in complex tasks.

3
00:00:06,030 --> 00:00:09,150
However, a challenge presented here is that very often,

4
00:00:09,150 --> 00:00:13,575
large tasks are actually composed of many multiple smaller tasks.

5
00:00:13,575 --> 00:00:16,710
We can see this plainly present in our cognitive model of driving.

6
00:00:16,710 --> 00:00:19,169
These tasks are so high level,

7
00:00:19,169 --> 00:00:22,200
that it's almost useful to describe driving in these terms.

8
00:00:22,200 --> 00:00:24,710
Each part can be broken down into various sub-tasks,

9
00:00:24,710 --> 00:00:27,030
like iteratively checking all the cars around you,

10
00:00:27,030 --> 00:00:30,570
or periodically checking how long it is until next turn needs to be made.

11
00:00:30,570 --> 00:00:34,705
What's more, these smaller tasks could then be used in different contexts.

12
00:00:34,705 --> 00:00:36,240
Route monitoring, for example,

13
00:00:36,240 --> 00:00:38,000
isn't only useful when driving a car,

14
00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:41,750
it might be useful while running or biking or while riding as a passenger.

15
00:00:41,750 --> 00:00:44,765
Traffic monitoring might be something that autonomous vehicles might do,
16
00:00:44,765 --> 00:00:46,010
not just the human user.

17
00:00:46,010 --> 00:00:50,540
So, the analysis of a task in a particular context could be useful in designing

18
00:00:50,540 --> 00:00:55,130
interfaces for other contexts if we break the analysis down into sub-tasks.

19
00:00:55,130 --> 00:00:57,080
So, let's take a simple example of this.

20
00:00:57,080 --> 00:01:00,860
Here is a somewhat simple model of the act of buying something online.

21
00:01:00,860 --> 00:01:03,290
Notice that a lot of the tasks involved here are

22
00:01:03,290 --> 00:01:05,840
general to anyone shopping on any website and yet,

23
00:01:05,840 --> 00:01:08,675
every website needs to provide all of these functions.

24
00:01:08,675 --> 00:01:12,785
As a side note, notice also the interesting analogy going on with the top two.

25
00:01:12,785 --> 00:01:15,320
Online, there is no cart or checkout station,

26
00:01:15,320 --> 00:01:17,810
but we borrowed those to help the user understand

27
00:01:17,810 --> 00:01:21,110
the shopping process online and how similar it is to shopping in a store.

28
00:01:21,110 --> 00:01:25,655
Now, anyway, if we treat this cognitive task analysis more hierarchically,

29
00:01:25,655 --> 00:01:29,830
we can start to see a well-defined sub-task around this checkout process.

30
00:01:29,830 --> 00:01:34,490
Every online vendor I've ever encountered has these steps in its checkout process.

31
00:01:34,490 --> 00:01:36,890
Now, because this is so well-defined,

32
00:01:36,890 --> 00:01:38,690
we can actually leverage existing tools,

33
00:01:38,690 --> 00:01:41,630
like existing payment widgets or something like PayPal.

34
00:01:41,630 --> 00:01:44,854
This hierarchical task analysis helps us understand

35
00:01:44,854 --> 00:01:48,350
what tools might already be available to accomplish certain portions of our task,

36
00:01:48,350 --> 00:01:50,570
or how we might design certain things to

37
00:01:50,570 --> 00:01:53,825
transfer between different tasks and different contexts.

38
00:01:53,825 --> 00:01:58,280
Hierarchical task analysis also lets the designers of the site abstract over

39
00:01:58,280 --> 00:02:02,855
this part of the process and focus more on what might make their particular site
unique.

40
00:02:02,855 --> 00:02:06,770
This kind of task analysis is so common that you generally will find tasks and

41
00:02:06,770 --> 00:02:10,530
sub-tasks whenever you're looking at the results of a cognitive task analysis.

42
00:02:10,530 --> 00:02:13,855
So, it's important to remember the strengths supplied by this hierarchy,

43
00:02:13,855 --> 00:02:17,375
abstracting out unnecessary details for a certain level of abstraction,

44
00:02:17,375 --> 00:02:19,580
modularizing designs or principles,
45
00:02:19,580 --> 00:02:22,895
so they can be transferred between different tasks or different contexts,

46
00:02:22,895 --> 00:02:25,280
and organizing the cognitive task analysis in

47
00:02:25,280 --> 00:02:27,985
a way that makes it easier to understand and reason over.

48
00:02:27,985 --> 00:02:29,810
Last, it's really important to note that

49
00:02:29,810 --> 00:02:32,090
the cognitive and hierarchical task analyses that

50
00:02:32,090 --> 00:02:34,670
we've shown here are extremely simplistic,

51
00:02:34,670 --> 00:02:37,550
mostly, honestly because of the limited screen real estate.

52
00:02:37,550 --> 00:02:40,100
When you're creating a real cognitive models,

53
00:02:40,100 --> 00:02:42,300
you'll likely have several levels of abstraction,

54
00:02:42,300 --> 00:02:43,940
several different states, and

55
00:02:43,940 --> 00:02:46,850
additional annotating information like what the user has to keep in mind,

56
00:02:46,850 --> 00:02:49,895
or how they might be feeling at a certain stage in the analysis.

57
00:02:49,895 --> 00:02:49,895
We'll put some examples of some good thorough models in the notes.

You might also like