Your project will be fully transformed by a WELL-RESEARCHED TASK model. It makes sense that this is the most significant design deliverable since it demonstrates user behaviour, actions, and specific needs at every level. It is more successful to design a product or service around these discoveries since the information a user seeks can be located and things happen when they want them to.
It serves as a vision statement as well, outlining and communicating the behaviour expectations of users in a system. It provides direction and focus to the experience you need to create, whether you choose to upgrade gradually or all at once.
What makes a good task model?
A task model, at its most basic, outlines the tasks that a user expects and needs to perform in order to accomplish a goal. Rich data that includes behaviour patterns, content specifications, the individuals involved, the media kinds being cited, and the users’ emotions can improve this.
Numerous well-funded projects have fallen short because their designers were unaware of the intended or expected behaviour of their target audience. This is prevented by utilising a task model, which directs team attention towards the user’s behaviour and the data he need to accomplish his objective.
When to create a task model
There is no assurance that the project you are working on will succeed if a task model hasn’t been made. For this reason, each project needs to have a task model developed.
Task models and personas complement one another and feed off similar kinds of research, so the two can be built side by side for efficiency. This also lets you take into account various task models that are based on the personas. Personas, task models, and competitor benchmarking are frequently addressed in the same session because they complement one another well.
Models for tasks ought to be dynamic documents. They need to be adjusted and enhanced as new information is discovered through further study because they only capture a moment in time of an audience.
By doing this, they become a continuous strategic instrument that continuously captures user behaviour and exposes opportunities.
What are you communicating?
An audience narrative is presented by a task model, which serves as a point of reference for the duration of the project’s design and development. The components are there to assist you in creating solutions that take into account what people actually do.
The goal
In the end, what is the user attempting to accomplish? For instance, the user wants to make travel reservations.
The order of tasks
The task model’s general form is determined by the flow of tasks required to accomplish a goal. Phases can be used to organise larger projects. This could include, for instance, the preliminary research into potential holiday spots, the comparison of particular locales, and finally the actual trip booking.
User behavior
The way a user wants to switch between each task is demonstrated by their behaviour. Generally speaking, there are three behaviour states:
Direct connection
Tasks flow from one to the next. For instance, after completing their vacation reservation and clicking the submit button, a confirmation page displays.
Controlled evaluation
A user want to investigate features of a well-defined good or service. Assume, for illustration purposes, that you are purchasing an automobile and wish to compare various wheel, engine, trim, and option combinations. The navigation and user interface can concentrate solely on giving you the freedom to carry out these tasks in a safe environment until you achieve a certain result.
Complex evaluation
Almost all projects include complex evaluations. This is the situation where a user needs to fulfil multiple, frequently unconnected needs in order to accomplish a goal. For instance, consumers consider dates, locations, activities, and budget while making travel plans. They’ll probably have some specific demands, like the need for a swimming pool or the need to be away from a busy road. Their ultimate emotional objectives may be to take a restful respite. Finding and comprehending this information helps you decide what kind of display to use, what mood you want to go for, and what deeper content is necessary.
Emotional needs
What motivates the actions of the users? Is he seeking clarification or reassurance regarding the appropriateness of what he’s viewing? If he is purchasing a car, for instance, the precise specification might not matter as much as what the car will say about him to his neighbours and friends.
Who or what are they interacting with?
Are are other users participating, and if so, from what additional sources would they like to obtain the information? We picture consumers collaborating with friends or family to make decisions while selecting a vacation. To learn more about their possibilities, people will consult travel agencies and make use of brochures.
Content requirements
You may determine what content demands users have at different points in their journey by doing research. This will cover everything from the standard information that any user has to the highly specialised content that only a portion of the audience has access to. It’s important to understand that if the users’ specific demands aren’t met, the task will fail or they will switch channels (for instance, leaving a website to call a call centre on the phone).
Existing barriers
It could be able to determine the current gaps and barriers on the job model (due to a lack of functionality or content) if you have conducted some benchmark study. As an alternative, you might show the two models next to one another if there are significant differences between the present and suggested models.
Suggesting solutions
When obstacles have been identified and workable solutions are available, these can be added as suggestions to the task model and debated in project team workshops.
The anatomy of a task model
Task models include both design and content data. This ensures that the documents are actionable, which makes them more beneficial to the project team. The information should be presented clearly and the work model should be easily understood visually. Thus, concentrate on communicating the most crucial details.
Goal
What is the user attempting to accomplish in the end? Make this the model’s title.
Tasks
What specific actions must a user take to accomplish the goal? These turn into the distinct components.
Task phases
Describe how the tasks fall into the appropriate stages of investigation, confirmation, or acquisition.
User behavior
What patterns of behaviour does a user follow in order to finish a task? This is demonstrated by the way the many tasks are organised and linked together.
Content needs
What details are required by users to support the task? This is appended as a task-related note.
Barriers
Where are the current obstacles and places of failure that you should be conscious of?
Design suggestions
How can the website support the task better? Provide ideas for the project team to consider.
Personas
In situations when different task models are created to produce different user scenarios, it could be beneficial to include a reminder of the personas in the task model. ( learn more about personas )
Who is the audience?
Task models are useful for slicing through project complexity. Participate in the data analysis workshop with the following teams so they may get a firsthand understanding of how users think and behave.The task model should be reviewed by a large audience and their feedback should be included.
Stakeholder team
One outstanding vision document is the task model. You start to break out the kind of user experience you want visitors to have on the website as you explain the behaviour of users. Cutting through personal ideas about what the greatest answer would be and promoting discussion about locating the optimal user experience might be beneficial.
Design team
(which encompasses user experience teams). Designing the interface and flow requires an understanding of the user behaviours revealed by the task models.
Development team
(Business analysts, front-end and back-end developers). These are the individuals capable of bringing the task model’s necessary functionality to life. Collaborate with them to guarantee that users have access to the appropriate data at the appropriate time.
How to validate
In the short term, a task model does not require validation because it is derived from research.
Testing by users will be necessary to validate any sitemaps, wireframes, designs, and, of course, the final product. You can refine your task model during this testing period.
It is important to enquire about the expectations and desired actions of users during the testing process. Your task model probably needs to be refined if what they are expecting or what they want differs from what you’ve designed.
When your task model is well-designed, you will be able to validate the labelling and layout clarity more so than the functionality and flow underneath.
RESEARCH AND WORKSHOP IDEAS
There are clever research methods (like structured depth interviews) that allow you to concentrate on the specifics of a user’s memory recall of a narrative. Additionally, there are techniques (like diary studies and ethnography) that allow you to track task completion over time. We’ve concentrated on a few straightforward research methods in this section that you can quickly incorporate into even the smallest of projects.
RESEARCH TECHNIQUE: Conduct research
Lightweight research can (and should) be done for every project. Here are a few concepts. Record narratives that highlight the individuals users contacted, the steps they took, the information they sought, and how they obtained it in all of your approaches.
Visit call centers
A call centre operated by the company you work for is an ideal location for conducting research. As you listen in on as many calls as you can throughout the day, sit next to an operator (it’s beneficial to work with a few throughout the day) and record the user stories, making note of:
In what order?
How does the operator respond?
Does the operator have additional reference content to hand?
Is the call successful?
What are the parting shots?
Make contextual observations
Sales desks, customer service counters, and employee shadowing—following someone around for a while—are all excellent places to observe how customers and businesses interact.Along with listening for the same information as in the call centre, you will also be watching people’s facial expressions and body language.
It’s important to consider your note-taking technique to avoid coming across as a researcher using a clipboard. It is possible to covertly take notes after every customer interaction, but you run the risk of missing another interesting anecdote. Audio recordings are great, but you’ll probably need permission to use them.
Taking pictures will serve as a prompt to help you remember stories and will serve to remind you of the surroundings. Take pictures, for instance, demonstrating how people move through a clothing store. Take note of how they first scan every item, then choose a few to try on and finally buy something.
Visit online forums
The best place to find user stories is on forums. It doesn’t take long to go through hundreds of posts and understand exactly what is expected of you and what questions are asked of you for any given task.
WORKSHOP IDEA: Analyze data
After gathering the data, you must interpret the stories to determine the needs and behaviours of the users. Place the individual components on a large whiteboard and connect them with arrows using Post-it Notes.
You may find that your personas have different task models; they may be attempting to accomplish distinct objectives or they may have significantly different approaches to accomplishing the same objective. In this case, give each persona its own task model. Comparing the differences will enable you to see how each user type’s needs must be supported by the product or service.
Identify the goal
What is it that users ultimately want to do? Identifying the goal is key
Analyze the information
Examine every story you’ve gathered and identify the specific requirements, related material, and methods by which readers were attempting to obtain the information. Put a Post-it note next to each distinct need.
Group the information
Sort the Post-it Notes according to the stages that users experience. Put the groups in order and name them (in a scenario involving commerce, this could be research, purchase, and postpurchase).
Identify the user behavior
Which pattern of behaviour are people exhibiting? Do they move directly from one task to the next or do they weigh the various components using complicated or controlled evaluations?
Highlight the emotions
Lastly, go back over your stories and determine what emotional needs the users have. What do they find enjoyable and what frustrates them? Knowing these will help you prioritise the current obstacles that need to be removed by allowing you to begin adding colour and richness to your task model. Put a green dot on the positives and a red dot on the problems on Post-it notes.
What’s the simplest way to illustrate a task model?
You’ll have a whiteboard full of Post-it Notes connected by arrows and arranged into the task model once the data analysis workshop is over. This can be instantly shared, captured on camera, and discussed with the project team.
Another method is to rapidly sketch the task model and share it. To grasp the fundamental structure, concentrate first on the tasks and behaviour states. Next, place the notes and information from the richer content on top of that.
You can write brief narratives about each person’s work process. Draw attention to her goals and the steps she took to achieve them. Combining multiple stories can be an effective way to convey the variety (and richness) of methods that users use to finish the same task.
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