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June 15, 2004
User and task analysis
Brian Ehret did some second-degree user and task analysis for Directory Server. By interviewing users with a moderate amount of experience, Brian got close to observing what these folks are doing with the software, and how often they're doing it. The picture that came back from the 6 or so interviews Brian did strikes me as similar to the 70 minutes of raw footage I had before starting to make the rough cut edit. You can sculpt at least one, probably several, stories from the raw material... which one best reflects reality? Is your story enough to constrain your design?
Right now, what I'm doing for the next big version of the product cannot reasonably be called user and task analysis. Hackos and Redish say user and task analysis starts with observing real users in situ, then continues with hypotheses, tests, more hypotheses, etc. to identify models for designing user interaction.
My aim is more modest. We have too much documentation today. I know the docs as well as perhaps anyone else, and even I have to use Google to find what I want. So perhaps I should call it task classification, or use distillation. Ideally, the end product is Elixir of Directory Server HOWTO. (Cures asthma, liver spots, postmodern anxiety, stinkfoot, and a host of other ailments, too.)
Posted by Mark at June 15, 2004 10:55 AM