The tacit dimension of user tasks: Elicitation and contextual representation

Abstract

Traditional task-elicitation techniques provide prepared structures for acquiring and representing knowledge about user tasks. As different users might perceive work tasks quite differently, normative elicitation and representation schemes do not necessarily lead to accurate support of individual users. If the individual perception of tasks should guide the development of user interfaces personal constructs have to be taken into account. They can be elicited through repertory grids: Personal work content and task-relevant information emerge in the course of structured interviews and can be transformed to conventional representation schemes, even for execution and prototyping. In this paper we introduce an elicitation procedure based on repertory grids and its embodiment in a working user-centered and task-based design approach. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.