Task Design - Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Define and Refine User Interfaces - page 94

Overview of the Task Creation Process

In a good task, the user covers the areas of the interface that you have questions about while on their
way to accomplishing something that they care about. Tasks for usability tests come from the
intersection of two lists: your questions about the product and users' goals ( Figure 6.1 ). So let's look at
how you get those two lists and then create tasks from them. The steps are as follows:
List the users' goals and accomplishments that can be achieved using your interface.

1.

2. List your questions—issues, risks, and other concerns about the interface (you may have done

this as part of the kickoff meeting).

3. Prioritize your questions.

4. Pick a user accomplishment that covers one or more important questions and turn it into a task

using the template provided in this chapter. Repeat this step until you have a set of tasks that
covers your questions.

5. Determine the order of the tasks and whether you've got the right amount of work to fill your

testing time.

6. Write the instructions that will be given to users.

7. Reality-check your tasks.

Figure 6.1: Good usability tasks are drawn from the area of overlap—users are doing something
they care about, and along the way they're answering your questions.

As indicated in the previous chapter , task design should be done by the core team, plus others who
have a strong interest in what is tested and/or who have knowledge about users and what they do.
Although it's possible for one person to create tasks, the discussion that takes place during the task
design session can be quite valuable because it will reveal all sorts of assumptions (often conflicting
ones) about what users will do with the interface.