Task analysis is the analysis of how a task is accomplished, including a detailed description of both manual and mental activities, task and element durations, task frequency, task allocation, task complexity, environmental conditions, necessary clothing and equipment, and any other unique factors involved in or required for one or more people to perform a given task. Task analysis emerged from research in applied behavior analysis and still has considerable research in that area. In common language, a task is part of a set of actions which accomplish a job; the sense is that useful work is getting done. Task analysis is the analysis or a breakdown of exactly how a task is accomplished, such as what sub-tasks are required. ... Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is a systematic process of studying and modifying observable behavior through a manipulation of the environment. ...

Information from a task analysis can then be used for many purposes, such as personnel selection and training, tool or equipment design, procedure design (e.g., design of checklists or decision support systems) and automation. Personnel selection is the process used to hire (or, less commonly, promote) individuals. ... Training refers to the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competencies as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relates to specific useful skills. ... Look up Procedure in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... 1. ... Decision support systems are a class of computerized information systems that support decision making activities. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

The term "task" is often used interchangeably with activity or process. Task analysis often results in a hierarchical representation of what steps it takes to perform a task for which there is a goal and for which there is some lowest-level "action" that is performed. Task analysis is often performed by human factors professionals. Look up activity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Illustration of a physical process: a geyser in action. Process (lat. ... Human factors is an umbrella term for several areas of research that include human performance, technology, design, and human-computer interaction. ...

Task analysis may be of manual tasks, such as bricklaying, and be analyzed as time and motion studies using concepts from industrial engineering. Cognitive task analysis is applied to modern work environments such as supervisory control where little physical works occurs, but the tasks are more related to situation assessment, decision making, and response planning and execution. A time and motion study (or time-motion study) is a business efficiency technique combining the Time Study work of Frederick Winslow Taylor with the Motion Study work of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth (best known through the biographical 1950 film and book Cheaper by the Dozen). ... This article needs additional references or sources to facilitate its verification. ... Supervisory control is a general term for control of many individual controllers or control loops, whether by a human or an automatic control system, although almost every real system is a combination of both. ... Situation awareness or situational awareness [1] (SA) is the mental representation and understanding of objects, events, people, system states, interactions, environmental conditions, and other situation-specific factors affecting human performance in complex and dynamic tasks. ... Decision making is the cognitive process of selecting a course of action from among multiple alternatives. ...

Task analysis is also used in education. It is a model that is applied to classroom tasks to discover which curriculum components are well matched to the capabilities of students with learning disabilities and which task modification might be necessary. It discovers which tasks a person hasn't mastered, and the information processing demands of tasks that are easy or problematic. In behavior modification, it is a breakdown of a complex behavioral sequence into steps. This often serves as the basis for Chaining. For a curriculum vitae, see Résumé. In formal education, a curriculum (plural curricula) is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. ... In broad terms, the phrase learning disability covers any of a range of conditions that affect a persons ability to learn new information. ... Chaining is an instructional procedure used in Behavioral Psychology. ...

Task analysis: data collection

The analyst will often directly observe tasks performed by practitioners (as in ethnographic studies) and may audio-tape and videotape actual task performance. A more controlled study may be done in a laboratory, as in experimental psychology, where the practitioner may work with a simulation of the real task environment. An analysis of actual work procedures, manuals, etc. is also valuable. Ethnography ( ethnos = people and graphein = writing) is the genre of writing that presents varying degrees of qualitative and quantitative descriptions of human social phenomena, based on fieldwork. ... Experimental psychology approaches psychology as one of the natural sciences, and therefore assumes that it is susceptible to the experimental method. ... This article is about the general term. ...

Computational models of cognitive task performance

Task analysis versus Work Domain Analysis

If task analysis is likened to a set of instructions on how to navigate from point A to point B, then work domain analysis (WDA) is like having a map of the terrain that includes Point A and Point B (see Lintern, 2005). WDA is broader and focuses on the environmental constraints and opportunities for behavior, as in Gibsonian ecological psychology and ecological interface design. Ecological psychology (EP) is term claimed by a number of schools of psychology. ...

Task analysis and documentation

Since the 1980s, a major change in technical documentation has been to emphasize the tasks performed with a system rather than documenting the system itself. (Hackos and Redish, 1998) In software documentation particularly, long printed technical manuals that exhaustively describe every function of the software are being replaced by online help organized into tasks. This is part of the new emphasis on usability and user-centered design rather than system/software/product design. Software documentation or source code documentation is written text that accompanies computer software. ... Usability is a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal. ... It has been suggested that User Centered Design be merged into this article or section. ...

According to the historian of technical communication, R. John Brockmann, this task orientation in technical documentation began with publishing guidelines issued by IBM in the late 1980s. Later IBM studies led to John Carroll's theory of minimalism in the 1990s.

With the development of XML as a markup language suitable for both print and online documentation (replacing SGML with its focus on print), IBM developed the Darwin Information Typing Architecture XML standard in 2000. Now an OASIS standard, DITA has a strong emphasis on task analysis. Its three basic information types are Task, Concept, and Reference. Tasks are analyzed into steps, with a main goal of identifying steps that are reusable in multiple tasks. The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a general-purpose markup language. ... A specialized markup language using SGML is used to write the electronic version of the Oxford English Dictionary. ... The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) is a metalanguage in which one can define markup languages for documents. ... DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) is an XML-based architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. ... For the English rock band, see Oasis (band). ...

See also

• Business process mapping and business process modeling
• Cognitive ergonomics
• Job analysis
• Workflow
• Human reliability
• Programmed instruction
• Direct Instruction
• Applied Behavior Analysis

Σ This article does not cite any references or sources. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Process Modeling. ... Cognitive Ergonomics studies cognition in work settings, in order to optimize human well-being and system performance. ... Job Analysis refers to various methodologies for analyzing the requirements of a job. ... A workflow is a reliably repeatable pattern of activity enabled by a systematic organization of resources, defined roles and mass, energy and information flows, into a work process that can be documented and learned. ... Human reliability is related to the field of human factors engineering, and refers to the reliability of humans in fields such as manufacturing, transportation, the military, or medicine. ... Programmed instruction is a field first studied extensively by the behaviorist B.F. Skinner. ... Direct Instruction (DI) is an instructional design and teaching methodology originally developed by Siegfried Engelmann and the late Wesley C. Becker of the University of Oregon. ... Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is a systematic process of studying and modifying observable behavior through a manipulation of the environment. ...

Further reading

• Crandall, B., Klein, G., and Hoffman, R. (2006). Working minds: A practitioner's guide to cognitive task analysis. MIT Press. 
• Kirwan, B. and Ainsworth, L. (Eds.) (1992). A guide to task analysis. Taylor and Francis. 
• Hackos, JoAnn T. and Redish, Janice C. (1998). User and Task Analysis for Interface Design. Wiley. 
• Brockmann, R. John (1986). Writing Better Computer User Documentation - From Paper to Online. Wiley-Interscience. 
• Carroll, John M. (1990). The Nurnberg Funnel - Designing Minimalist Instruction for Practical Computer Skill. MIT. 

External links

• Task analysis