Task Analysis Mapping for Painting a Room

Task analysis is the process of learning about ordinary users by observing them in action to understand in detail how they perform their tasks and achieve their intended goals. Simply, this is a research method that requires the observer to understand the “why”, “what”, and “how” in the process of a person, user, or system reaching their planned objectives.

For this exercise, I created a task analysis for a set of roommates discovering they need to paint their living room wall in their flat and outlined the main tasks involved along the way. The tasks are high-level and I outlined 8 main steps, detailed below.

I proceeded based on the following assumptions and constraints:

• I do not have a budget to cover the cost of painting this room
• My roommates and I rent this flat from a land lord
• There are two roommates sharing the flat with me, and they could have varying degree of involvement in this process
• The room I am looking to paint is covered in old battered, and rather dispirited wallpaper

Storyboard Mapping:

1. Stakeholder Meeting — Assemble roommates to discuss painting the living room with the horrendous and crumbling wallpaper, get consent of group and allocate tasks, timeline, and select a set of potential paint colours to buy to spruce up the place. (As it is a small paint job, plan to take ownership of project and decide there is no need to hire contractors or painters to help with the process)

2. Research Options — Search different vendors you could buy paints from, their locations, and price points to determine potential budget

3. Get a Sponsor for This Idea (Landlord Buy-In) — Discuss the need for a new paint job for the flat, and resurface tenant agreement that states the landlord should be providing a fresh paint layer for the flat upon turnover of new tenants, which he has deflected for the better part of a decade. Get agreement for Landlord to cover costs, and decide on a budget for the project.

4. Purchase Supplies — Based on your earlier research in step two, go to the nearest Home Depot to work with a specialist in the paint department to purchase paints and supplies, keeping to the budget determined in step 3.

5. Prepare Room — clear room of furniture, cover bigger pieces with plastic covers, and strip away old wall paper. Sand down the wall to prepare for painting

6. Paint wall — Apply painters tape to the crown molding, floorboards, and corners of the wall that shouldn’t be painted, then proceed to paint wall multiple layers and let dry. Put room back together once job is done J

7. Consolidate expenses — put all your receipts together and create a mini expense report to give to landlord to collect cheque and cover cost of the project as determined in step 3.

8. Drinks! — Get the bubbly, beer, wine or drink of choice flowing and have celebratory drinks with roommates and pat yourself on the back for a job well done!

These are all fairly high level; the task analysis map could be far more granular detail. This particular exercise was more iterative than agile in approach but in a real life scenario with more complex tasks, the task mapping would account for changes and enhancements along the way. This method serves as a research tool to help designers creating great user experiences.