Task model support for cooperative analysis

Software usability is a function of how well the software supports the user’s situated tasks, so it is important for the software developer to acquire a sound knowledge of the user’s roles, tasks and working environment. The research reported here assumes that the user is a primary source of such knowledge and examines how this knowledge may feed directly into the software developer’s understanding through user-developer cooperation in analysis and modelling. This short paper briefly reports on the use of task models as representations to support cooperative analysis and concludes that task models provide a useful common ground for user-developer communication and cooperation.