Toward an Integration of Task- and Work Domain Analysis Techniques for Human-Computer Interface Design

Abstract

Work analysis techniques are critical, longstanding methods for designers to obtain the knowledge required for good interface design. The majority of current techniques fall into two types: task-centered and system- or work domain-centered. These approaches have different and largely complimentary strengths and weaknesses, but they focus on different aspects of the design problem and a unification is required for completeness. We discuss and compare the characteristics of both approaches. Then we present results and lessons learned from an attempt to integrate two characteristic analysis techniques in analyzing interface requirements for a simple feedwater system: Rasmussen's (1985) Abstraction Decomposition Space (also known as the Abstraction Hierarchy) and Sewell and Geddes (1994) Plan-Goal Graph.