Task models in practice: Are there special requirements for the use in daily work?

Abstract

Task models are a well-known and common concept in Human- Computer-Interaction. However, there is no big break-through in the usage in daily work in industry. There are use-cases that use task models and we are interested in their settings. We conducted a pilot-study that evaluated the special needs for task models in daily industrial use. Therefor we interviewed five subjects that are affiliated in two companies. One central matter is the lack of iterative support for the development of task models. We introduce four levels of detail that support the iterative development of task models. The subjects also need defined conditions to use the model in their future work process. We implemented these aspects in the notation of the Useware Markup Language.