Task Analysis Mapping: How to Paint a Room Like a UX Designer
Task analysis mapping is done when researchers and designers (and designer-researchers) are trying to understand how someone completes a task on their own, without guidance or prompting.
Below, we’ll go through an example of a task analysis I sketched out. Let’s start by introducing the problem we are analyzing!
Prompt: Imagine you’re a design student living in a dingy old apartment in San Francisco (can’t afford much else!). You and your roommates finally get fed up one day and make the decision to paint over the walls. In order to do this, you start thinking about things like: how are we going to fund this, what color do we want, what do we need to prepare?
With this prompt in mind, I got out some sticky notes and started sketching out a task analysis map. To come up with with the different steps in my task analysis map, I try to imagine myself as the design student in the old apartment that wants to paint over the ugly walls!
- Background — I started with a simple sketch showing the problem (ugly walls) behind everything.
2. Brainstorming Session — Afterwards, the roommates have a brainstorming session where they come up with the idea to paint the walls.
3. After making the decision to paint the walls, they all chip in some money so that they have enough for supplies.
4. With enough money in hand, they go visit the paint store to pick out a color.
5. At the paint store, they also buy supplies they will need like brushes, tape, and of course, the paint!
6. Back at the apartment, they prepare by placing tape on the top and bottom edges of the walls, and old newspapers on the floor.
7. Now that they are all set up, the roommates start to actually paint the wall.
8. After they are done with painting, they spend some time to clean up.
9. Last step, enjoy their beautiful new walls!
Entire task analysis map:
In this exercise, I started with a problem and thought of the steps that would need to occur until the problem was solved and everyone was happy. At first, I would have never thought that there were so many steps for painting the walls (a task that seems pretty simple), but through doing this task analysis map, I was able to really think about the entire process and all the steps that were needed to successfully plan for and paint the walls. If I did this exercise again, I would love to add the steps of: asking the landlord for permission, and researching how to actually paint the walls.
Try this exercise yourself and comment below if you’d like to share what your steps would have been! :)
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