Scribd
Upload
158 views10 pages

15-16-Task Analysis, Hierarchical Task Analysis, GOMS

This document discusses different techniques for task analysis in human-computer interaction, including hierarchical task analysis (HTA) and the GOMS model. HTA involves decomposing tasks into subtasks in a hierarchical structure to describe the order of actions people perform. It can be represented textually or diagrammatically. GOMS specifies goals, operators, methods, and selection criteria to model how users achieve goals through basic actions. An example shows decomposing the goal of closing a window into selecting between menu-based and keyboard shortcut methods. Task analysis helps understand what users do, what they work with, and their knowledge in order to design effective interfaces.

Uploaded by

Ayaz Hussain
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
158 views10 pages

15-16-Task Analysis, Hierarchical Task Analysis, GOMS

This document discusses different techniques for task analysis in human-computer interaction, including hierarchical task analysis (HTA) and the GOMS model. HTA involves decomposing tasks into subtasks in a hierarchical structure to describe the order of actions people perform. It can be represented textually or diagrammatically. GOMS specifies goals, operators, methods, and selection criteria to model how users achieve goals through basic actions. An example shows decomposing the goal of closing a window into selecting between menu-based and keyboard shortcut methods. Task analysis helps understand what users do, what they work with, and their knowledge in order to design effective interfaces.

Uploaded by

Ayaz Hussain
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 10

Human Computer Interaction

Lecture No. 15-16


Task Analysis, Hierarchical Task Analysis, GOMS

[email protected]

1
What is Task Analysis?

Set of techniques/Methods used to analyze


people's jobs:
• what people do
• what things they work with
• what they must know

2
An Example
• in order to clean the house
• get the vacuum cleaner out
• fix the appropriate attachments
• clean the rooms
• when the dust bag gets full, empty it
• put the vacuum cleaner and tools away

• must know about:


• vacuum cleaners, their attachments, dust bags,
cupboards, rooms etc.

3
Approaches to task analysis
• Task decomposition
• splitting task into (ordered) subtasks

• Knowledge based techniques


• what the user knows about the task
and how it is organised

• Entity/object based analysis


• relationships between objects, actions and the people who perform them

• lots of different notations/techniques

4
general method

• observe

• collect unstructured lists of words and actions

• organize using notation or diagrams

5
Task Decomposition
Aims:
describe the actions people do
structure them within task subtask hierarchy
describe order of subtasks

Variants:
Hierarchical Task Analysis (HTA)
most common
Diagrammatic HTA

CTT (CNUCE, Pisa)

6
Textual HTA description
Hierarchy description ...

0. in order to clean the house


1. get the vacuum cleaner out
2. get the appropriate attachment
3. clean the rooms
3.1. clean the hall
3.2. clean the living rooms
3.3. clean the bedrooms
4. empty the dust bag
5. put vacuum cleaner and attachments away

... and plans


Plan 0: do 1 - 2 - 3 - 5 in that order. when the dust bag gets full do 4
Plan 3: do any of 3.1, 3.2 or 3.3 in any order depending
on which rooms need cleaning

• only the plans denote order

7
Diagrammatic HTA

8
GOMS
Goals
• what the user wants to achieve

Operators
• basic actions user performs

Methods
• decomposition of a goal into subgoals/operators

Selection
• means of choosing between competing methods
9
GOMS example
GOAL: CLOSE-WINDOW
. [select GOAL: USE-MENU-METHOD
. MOVE-MOUSE-TO-FILE-MENU
. PULL-DOWN-FILE-MENU
. CLICK-OVER-CLOSE-OPTION
GOAL: USE-CTRL-W-METHOD
. PRESS-CONTROL-W-KEYS]

For a particular user:

Rule 1: Select USE-MENU-METHOD unless another


rule applies
Rule 2: If the application is GAME,
select CTRL-W-METHOD

10

You might also like