TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
End-users have business goals. Essential tasks are
the actions that the end-user must take to achieve
these goals. Essential tasks are unchanging - they
exist irregardless of what devices(including software)
exist to aid in accomplishing the tasks. In the main,
task analysis is discovery of what those essential
tasks are and how they all interrelate.
How I Do Task Analysis?:
I walk through multiple iterrations of logical data
flow diagrams with end-users to obtain and verify my
understanding of essential tasks and their
interrelationships. (DFDs are great for walkthroughs.)
I then redraw (i.e., repartition) the diagrams until
the interfaces between tasks are minimized. I now
have a comprehensive, rigorous understanding of tasks
and their interrelationships, AND the tasks are
"chunked" to be right-size.
Why I Do A Task Analysis?:
After performing the analysis described above, writing
clear, concise, user-friendly documentation is a
relatively straight shot.
Tony Markos
--- TechComm Dood <techcommdood -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
>
> Maybe the point of my reply was lost...
>
> How do you define task analysis, and given that
> definition, how does
> it help you in your job as a technical writer?
_______________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com
ROBOHELP X5: Featuring Word 2003 support, Content Management, Multi-Author
support, PDF and XML support and much more!
TRY IT TODAY at http://www.macromedia.com/go/techwrl
WEBWORKS FINALDRAFT: New! Document review system for Word and FrameMaker
authors. Automatic browser-based drafts with unlimited reviewers. Full
online discussions -- no Web server needed! http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
