REPRESENTATION AND USE OF TASK KNOWLEDGE IN A USER-INTERFACE DESIGN ENVIRONMENT

A rapid prototyping approach to user interface design may be enhanced by integration with a theory of the users' tasks. The paper discusses various approaches to modelling user tasks including task knowledge structures (TKS) which provides a theory of the structure of task knowledge, together with a method for the identification and modelling of this knowledge. Formal specification languages may be used to provide a precise description of TKS models and to assist in their validation; the use of LOTOS for this purpose is demonstrated. The integration of task knowledge with a rapid prototyping approach to design is introduced in the context of work on the Adept project. A software demonstrator for Adept provides a graphical environment where a task model is used to derive an interface model, which may be further refined to produce an executable prototype.