New Task Model Elements for Complex User

New Task Model
Elements for Complex
User-Software
Interactions
26th Annual IEEE STC
Neta Ezer, Ph.D.
UX Human Factors Engineer
Peter Shimpeno
UX Designer
Complex Domains, Complex User-Software
Interactions
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Complex Domains and Their Challenges
• Complex domains are those with:
– Many types of users with distinct roles requiring specialized knowledge
and skills
• Common and role-specific goals
– Tasks that require teamwork and communication
– Nonlinear workflows
– Dynamic environments with situations that can go from the mundane to
life-threatening in minutes
– Large amounts of data, numerous potential actions, and critical, timedependent decision making activities
– Multiple software systems and numerous potential software functions
– Human-in-the loop automation concerns
A challenge lies in how to design user interfaces for what
users need in the place and way they need them, to make
users as effective, efficient and satisfied as possible
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Role of UX in Design for Complex Domains
• User Experience (UX) Process
– Discover: research to
understand the users, tasks
and operational environment
From:
– Imagine: new ideas, quickly
iterated
– Invent: detailed designs
– Evaluate: usability
assessments and comparisons
To:
– Produce: final products
Clear communication of users’ needs to program
engineers, software developers and internal customers is
critical
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Communication Through the Task Model
• Task models show the tasks that users perform to get them to their goals,
the information they need and their expectations along the way
– They identify and communicate how a system needs to behave to match user
expectations
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Communication Through the Task Model
A well-researched task model will transform your project. It’s
the most important design deliverable, and for good reason – it
shows what users do, the behavior they adopt, and specific
requirements at each stage. Building a product or service
around these findings is more successful because things
happen when a user wants them to and the information they
are after can be found.
- Communicating the User Experience: A
Practical Guide for Creating Useful
Documentation (Caddick & Cable, 2011)
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UX
The UX Process and Task Models
• User Experience (UX) Process
– Discover
– Imagine
Create
Guide
Refine
– Invent
Validate
– Evaluate
Update
Train
– Produce
Task models can be created at different levels of task
decomposition depending on design phase and needs
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Basic Elements of the Task Model (Caddick & Cable, 2011)
1 Goal Statement
2 Phases
3 Tasks
4 Workflow
5 Potential Barriers
6 Context & Expectations
Basic User Behaviors (Caddick & Cable, 2011)
A Direct Connections
B Complex Evaluations
C Controlled Evaluations
Additions to Task Models for Complex UserSoftware Interactions
• Basic elements and user behaviors are sufficient for mostly linear,
commercial user-interface interactions
– Fail to address critical components of complex user-software
interactions found in military and similar complex domains
• For complex user-software interactions task models may need to
convey:
– Software processes to address potential human-in-the-loop issues or
bottlenecks
– Multiple software systems
– Multiple users and roles and how information is exchanged among them
– Serial, parallel and non-linear workflows
• Goal is to maintain simplicity
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Software Processes
• Value in representing select software tasks in the task
model
– Software tasks in which the outcome influences the next
task the user will perform
• Users tasks - highly saturated border
• Software tasks - less saturated version of that same
color
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Software Processes: Direct Connections
• Direct connection: User cannot move to the next task until the
software task is complete or vice versa
– A line between the darker and lighter colored task circles indicates this
direct relationship
E.g., Users cannot complete file review until the software completes file
generation.
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Software Processes:
Complex & Controlled Evaluations
• Software processes may include complex evaluations and controlled
evaluations
E.g., A user’s query triggers complex and controlled evaluations by the
software in which databases are queried; data are scored and sorted; and
the results organized into collections that are functionally meaningful to the
user
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Software Processes:
Concurrent User & Software Tasks
• Highlight how users and software work together
– E.g., decision support system
Software Task
• User and software task circles are collocated on
the workflow line
– The use of a more and less saturated colors to
divide human and computer tasks is continued
User Task
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Multiple Software Systems
• Users may use different software systems
within the mission workflow
Software used sequentially
• Distinguishing among the software systems
important for two situations
1) There are critical distinctions that constrain
what users can and cannot do with their
software
• E.g., large bandwidth differences, mobile
vs. desktop
2) The systems have different purposes
• E.g., One system is the customer’s website
for ordering products that feeds information
to software used in the warehouse
responsible for scheduling and delivering
the customer’s order
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Software used in parallel
Data Exchange
Multiple Users & Roles
• Show the relationship of tasks for users in different roles
– What they are responsible for and where they come into the overall
workflow
• Serial workflow - users may enter and leave the task model at
different times as they start and then complete their role-specific
tasks
– Collaboration or exchanges between users occur when one user is
leaving the workflow and another is entering it
• Parallel workflow - users perform their tasks at the same time but
collaborate or exchange information at various points along that
workflow
– Users have their own workflow, but rely on activities of other users as
inputs to their own activities and decisions
– It is important to show where the workflows are linked
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Multiple Users, Parallel Workflows
1 User Goal Statement
4 Indirect Data Exchange
2 User Icons
3 Software Clients
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5 Parallel Workflows
Multiple Users, Serial Workflows
1 User Legend
2 Software
3 User Entry Points
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Task Model Success Across Projects
• The new task model elements provide flexibility and scalability for
complex, multi-user systems
• Applied and iterated across projects in intelligence, cyber and missile
defense domains
– Improve communication across designers, engineers and software
developers
– Complements other user research artifacts such as user profiles, user
stories and task scenarios
• Iteration continues to handle new types of workflows and larger user
groups
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Acronyms
• UX – User Experience
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Acknowledgements
• User-Centered Design for Missile Defense IR&D
• Northrop Grumman User Experience (UX) Team
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