Why do you do what you do?

When you are completing a task, do you mentally walk through every step and sub-step and sub-sub-step that it takes to get to the end goal? No? Well, while it is not often on a conscious level, we, as humans, take into consideration every step and its importance to accomplish day to day tasks. What order do you chop things when making a salad? How do you choose what to do first when you get up in the morning? What steps when into my decision to write this blog on this topic? All of this can be explained, more or less, in understanding cognitive task analysis.

By definition, cognitive task analysis (CTA) is the systematic process and motivation behind decision making and the actions/steps taken next. CTA is important not just in our daily life but also for those who are in charge of designing and developing products. Due to different cultures, social norms, beliefs, family situations, age, etc etc etc (the list could go on forever) everyones approach to a task differs. This means that product developers have to take into consideration the CTA of their target audience/ customers/users.

In conducting a task analysis, researchers are trying to figure out what is going on inside users' heads - by figuring this out, they are one step closer to designing a useful or helpful product. Through this we can figure out what users' goals are, their current steps to achieve them, and how social or environmental factors effect them. Even though you probably will not get a perfect, finished product idea or description from this, you are one step closer to understanding the users' needs.

Now, I challenge you - the next time you go to send a text or email to someone, think about how many steps it took you and why you did those tasks in that specific order?