Chapter 1: The Task-Centered Design Process

This chapter gives an overview of the task-centered design process that the book recommends. The process is structured around specific tasks that the user will want to accomplish with the system being developed. These tasks are chosen early in the design effort, then used to raise issues about the design, to aid in making design decisions, and to evaluate the design as it is developed. The steps in the task-centered design process are as follows:

    * figure out who's going to use the system to do what

    * choose representative tasks for task-centered design

    * plagiarize

    * rough out a design

    * think about it

    * create a mock-up or prototype

    * test it with users

    * iterate

    * build it

    * track it

    * change it