[Sigia-l] The 3 Factors of I/A

[John O'Donovan]

I would say that the software in front of the average user has always been
task focussed, but the presentation of software is changing to reflect this
better now.

The advent of wizards and interfaces that are non conformist to the standard
Windows design on PCs has had a very positive impact. Leading users through
tasks in a very simplistic fashion has opened users up to software they may
have considered too complicated in the past.

WPs have also been following this model for years. Open a new document in
Works and the first thing it asks you is "What type of document do you want
to create?". Options are presented and simplified.

In fact trying to get most applications to open a new blank document without
the application trying to classify what you are trying to do is becoming a
form of black magic these days. Remember the annoying Microsoft office
assistant...?

http://www.rita.thegourmet.com/tywych06.gif
http://www.rita.thegourmet.com/tywych07.gif

The links say it all really. The danger in all of this is do you know what
the user is trying to do all the time? You can certainly guide them into
certain key tasks but you probably can't get the context right all the time
in an application like a WP.

Cheers,

jod


----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Merholz" <peterme at peterme.com>
To: "SIGIA" <sigia-l at asis.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 1:24 AM
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] The 3 Factors of I/A


>
> > On the web, however, (and on these mailing lists) i've seen a lot of
> > examples and disscusion about grouping based on Content Similarity and
not
> > much based on grouping by User Task and I wondered if anyone else was
> > doing some User Task driven work?
>
> Over here.
>
> In our work and in our teaching, we (Adaptive Path) discuss deriving a
> (top-down) information architecture from user tasks. We've done it, and
> talked about it, with respect to the work we did for PeopleSoft.com:
> http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/002889.php
>
> We researched how people approached the task of buying enterprise
software,
> developed a mental model based on it, and build the site architecture to
> reflect that. To be sure, the architecture wasn't a direct mapping -- some
> things didn't make sense to present in such a way. But even where we
> strayed, the task-orientation played a strong role throughout the
> architecture in how we related pieces of information and made them
> accessible to the visitor.
>
> I would take what others have suggested in this thread, and suggest that
> "content similarity" is meaningful only to the extent that it meets users'
> expectations in accomplishing their tasks. And, so, it's still, in some
> regard, a "task-based" approach.
>
> When I've presented this task orientation, I've occasionally been rebuffed
> by those who find it too constraining, and these folks have a point. If
> there are too many tasks that could be managed in your system, trying to
> design solutions for those tasks could be overwhelming and confusing.
>
> But, given a small enough set of tasks, the task-based approach can work
> wonders. I find it interesting that we're seeing tasks be explicit in
> software design. For the longest time, software was very task-agnostic --
> it's just a tool with innumerable features that you can fiddle with. I
mean,
> how can a word processor know what task you're trying to accomplish?
>
> But, of late, task-dominant software is emerging, the best example of
which
> I can think of being iPhoto from Apple. At the bottom of iPhoto is a
button
> bar, with  "Import", "Organize", "Edit", "Book". Each of these being steps
> you would take to act on your photos. There's no palette of icons
> representing tools which you apply, as there is in PhotoShop or something.
> Just a simple series of buttons to push.
>
> On a whole other tack, something else worth addressing is (sorry) faceted
> classification, and how it can help here. For sites that are meant to meet
> innumerable tasks, facets can allow users to remain task focused, by
> utilizing facets in a sequence that is task-like. Prof Marti Hearst has
> talked about this with respect to her work on Flamenco, and gave some
> examples with regard to recipes. A task could be "I want to make a summer
> pasta", and if you have "season" and "ingredient" facets, the user can
> cobble those together to meet the task need. Or, "I've got a chicken and
> it's dinner time. What can I make?" can be addressed by a "ingredient" and
> "mealtime" facets.
>
> --peter
>
>
>
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