Task-based documentation

Definition

Task-based documentation selects and structures content according to user tasks. A task is a goal-directed activity, such as installing, configuring, operating or maintaining a product. The documentation answers the question of how to accomplish a task, and it presents the product’s functions in the context of the tasks in which they are used.

Historical development

Task orientation developed as a reaction to feature-oriented manuals that described every menu and parameter in product order. Usability research and the spread of personal computers in the 1980s emphasized that users read in order to act. Style guides in the software industry, among them IBM’s Developing Quality Technical Information (first published in 1998), made task orientation a primary quality criterion. Topic-based architectures adopted the task as a dedicated information type with a fixed structure of prerequisites, steps and results.

Components

1. Task analysis. The systematic identification of users, goals, tasks, subtasks and their conditions.
2. Procedures. Numbered steps, each with one action and, where needed, its result.
3. Prerequisites and context. Conditions that must be met before a task begins, and a short statement of its purpose.
4. Supporting information. Concepts and reference data linked from the procedure rather than embedded in it.
5. Task-based navigation. Tables of contents and entry points named after goals rather than functions.

Function and purpose

The model reduces the distance between the information a reader finds and the action the reader intends. It helps writers decide what to omit: functions that support no identified task receive little or no description. It also makes documentation testable, because each procedure can be checked against the product.

Applications

Task-based documentation is common in software user assistance, operating and maintenance instructions for machinery and devices, and service documentation. In product safety documentation, safety-related instructions are placed at the steps of a task where a hazard arises, in addition to the general safety information.

Limitations

Not all information is task-shaped. Understanding a system, troubleshooting an unknown fault or evaluating options requires conceptual and reference content. A strictly task-based set can omit the background that experienced users need, and task lists derived from assumptions instead of observation may not match the tasks actually performed.

Relation to other models

Task-based documentation defines the content of a documentation set from the user’s activities. It is usually implemented with topic-based documentation and structured authoring, and it is closely related to minimalism, which shares its action orientation.

Conclusion

Task-based documentation established the user’s goal as the organizing principle of technical content. It is most effective when combined with conceptual and reference information that the tasks depend on.