Here’s a task model and service blueprint I made using Google Slides (see speaker notes for further information):
Feel free to make a copy and use it for your own work. Let me know if you do, either here in the comments or over via @nicprice on Twitter.
The background
Back in 2016 I started working with ONS (Office for National Statistics) over in Newport. I used to cycle from Newport Station out to the ONS office.
As we researched what it was like to take part in an ONS survey on behalf of a business, we wanted to plot out the user journey and show where the pain points and user needs feature along the way.
Task model. Now with added user needs!
In a task model we show someone’s goal (for example, book a holiday, in the original example), and then all the things that person has to either know or do (the tasks) to achieve the goal.
I first came across Task Models thanks to a talk by CX Partners co-founder Richard Caddick at the very first UXBristol in 2011.
A tasks model lets us explore the steps someone uses to reach their goal, and their patterns of behaviour.
In ONS we extended the task model by adding user needs to show where they are in the user journey.
We also used the task model to help us understand the front stage part of our service blueprint.
See also
- Ben (who I’d worked with at ONS) and I also used a task model to show what’s involved for a user research participant wanting to take part in research.
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