U-TEL: A Tool for Eliciting User Task Models from Domain Experts

Eliciting user-task models is a thorny problem in modelbased user interface design, and communicating domainspecific knowledge from an expert to a knowledge engineer is a continuing problem in knowledge acquisition. We devised a task elicitation method that capitalizes on a domain expert’s ability to describe a task in plain English, and on a knowledge engineer’s skills to formalize it. The method bridges the gap between the two by helping the expert refine the description and by giving the engineer clues to its structure. We implemented and evaluated an interactive tool called the User-Task Elicitation Tool (U-TEL) to elicit user-task models from domain experts based on our methodology. Via direct manipulation, U-TEL provides capabilities for word processing, keyword classification, and outline refinement. By using U-TEL, domain experts can refine a textual specification of a user task into a basic user-task model suitable for use in model-based interface development environments...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1998
• Where: IUI
• Authors: R. Chung-Man Tam, David Maulsby, Angel R. Puerta
• Keywords: Domain Experts, IUI 1998, Software Engineering, User Interface Design, User-task Model