Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Task models are frequently used to specify human-machine interfaces. As the
functionalities and processing are developed within an information system, the
specifications can also be based on one of the numerous formalisms used for the
development of computing systems in software engineering.
In RAMSES, the objective of activity analysis is to identify information needs in
different contexts of use. It is a matter of accounting for the dynamics of activity in
evolving contexts and with a population that has a great variability. Indeed the
action depends on circumstances [SUC 87]. An action only has meaning when it is
linked to its context of occurrence and restituted in the progress of a general strategy
of the user. The analysis of collected data must enable this dynamic to be re-
transcribed into a form that is easily shareable, in order to result in the specification
of an IIS corresponding to the needs of the target population.
The analysis of needs progresses in two stages. First, the data are re-transcribed
in a chronological account of the use activity. Each step of the activity is split into
sequences called “action-objective sequences”. Each sequence corresponds to an
objective of information search situated in its context (description of the
environment of use). The media used are also mentioned in order to specify the
characteristics that could have influenced the degree of usability of information. The
action objective sequences are then submitted to a second processing. Indeed, for the
design of the IIS, the analysis of the activity must be centered on the use of
information, i.e. the availability, usability and appropriateness of information to the
needs and objectives of users. This second processing enables the analysis to be
oriented from this point of view.
The first step for data analysis was structured with Quintilien's hexameter (
Who
does what, where, when, how and why?
). This tool is frequently cited in the quality
approaches, particularly in the Six Sigma method [HAR 00]. The objective is to lean
towards a completeness of information enabling the context of an event to be
identified. It is a matter of obtaining a precise and factual description of the
progress, trying to analyze the components that intervene at each step exhaustively,
to still understand the situation [VAL 06]. Each action is situated in space and time
(the time and place of the unfolding of the action), and then its content is described
by the observer. It is then a matter of specifying with what aim it was undertaken.
The motives of the action are partly provided by the commentaries that the users
make during the observation of the activity. They can come from past experiences or
personal representations. Wiener says on this subject that it is the personal
representations of the source and recipient of a message that reveal the meaning of a
message [WIE 48]. These motivations will enable us, in the following steps, to
update the mechanisms by which the inputs are combined with prior knowledge in
order to obtain elaborated strategies [KAY 97]. Thus, these analyses inform as to the
motivations and real objectives pursued by users via the actions undertaken.
