6 Part 6: V-Modell Reference Activities

6.3 Activities

6.3.7 Requirements and Analyses

6.3.7.5 Analyzing User Tasks

Purpose

Within the scope of the »User Tasks Analysis, the user tasks that will be supported in the future by the new system shall be described. This should include the preparation of user profiles and the description of the physical user environment.

6.3.7.5.1 Preparing User Profiles

When preparing the user profile analysis, the characteristics of the future users of the system shall be recorded and written down. Depending on these analytical results, criteria for the quality of software ergonomics shall be formulated and weighted for each characteristic of the users. From the weighted quality criteria, user friendliness can be optimized for the related characteristics.

To determine the user characteristics, it may be checked for example

• with regard to the required expert knowledge, whether the system to be developed is a workplace used by laymen or experts,
• whether the users are experienced or inexperienced computer users and
• whether they use the system permanently, i. e. several hours per day, or only sporadically, i. e. once a week.

If due to workflow reengineering required changes that lead to a new task definition and a new workflow become necessary, an intensive introduction of the participating users to the new operational procedures shall be provided. This should include the collection of user feedback that is to be incorporated into the design of the user interface.

6.3.7.5.2 Analyzing Physical Operation Environment

An analysis of the physical work environment of the dialogue system and of the user who works with it shall be made.

The design of the dialogue system from the point of view of the environment may be influenced for example by the location of the system (office, hall or public place), the influences due to noise/sound, light, dirt, climate and vibrations and by other disturbances from outside, such as the danger of vandalism when automatic machines are concerned.

Thus due to the environmental conditions for example an information terminal for tourists in a public place will be designed differently from a workplace in a travel agency. In case of a danger of vandalism when a terminal is used, it will be practical to equip it with a touch-sensitive screen instead of a mouse, while the workplace in a travel agency may well be equipped with a mouse and a keyboard.

6.3.7.5.3 Collecting User Tasks

From the start the person in charge of ergonomics should be involved in the analysis of the overall system so that the interactions of the user with the system can be appropriately designed.

At first the wishes and ideas of the users should be ascertained, and the functionality of the system should be visualized graphically.

From the business and operational targets of the system to be developed fundamental design targets with regard to the suitability of the tasks and the ability to handle the new user interfaces shall be derived. Business and operational targets will be specified for the most part by top management on the side of the acquirer and in this case shall be adopted as a requirement. In this context it would be conceivable that a company might plan to make it possible to sell its products over the internet. The requirement could be in this case that when designing the internet site a "digital salesperson" has to be realized that resembles a real salesperson as closely as possible.

When the wishes and ideas of the users will be known, the approximate functionalities and sequences shall be described with the help of graphic or simple text-based languages or notations, which all stakeholders should be able to understand, if possible without a major introduction effort. The working principle of the overall system may be documented for example on the basis of use cases and the central operational sequences may be modeled and depicted in the form of simple flow diagrams. By marking all passages in the system descriptions where the user interacts with the system, the dialogues and tasks that shall be supported by the system can be derived.

In order to refine the system, context questionsshall be formulated. Together with the users the related defined context questions shall be answered completely and documented in writing for each dialogue or each task previously identified in the analysis process. The questions that should be posed will include for example:

• When will this task be performed (trigger, precondition)?
• By whom will this task be performed?
• Why will this task be performed (objective of the action, post-condition)?
• How often will the task be performed?
• What shall be done in detail when performing the task?
• What additional means will be required?
• What exceptions from the normal approach (exceptional/special cases) will exist?
• What will initial design ideas look like?
• What wishes/suggestions shall be considered from the point of view of the users when the dialogue will be designed?

The detailed description of all dialogues and tasks will be the crucial basis for the design and realization of the user interfaces. Before this the dialogues should be structured and combined to groups of interactions that belong together. Thus dialogues may be prepared hierarchically.