science

Task-focused interface

Task-focused interface is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Task-focused interface rather than just read about it. In short: The task-focused interface is a type of user interface which extends the desktop metaphor of the graphical user interface to make tasks, not files and folders, the primary unit of interaction. Instead of showing entire hierarchies of information, such as a tree of documents, a task-focused interface shows the subset of the tree that is relevant to the task-at-hand.

Key takeaways

Task-focused interface belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Task-focused interface to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Task-focused interface from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The task-focused interface is a type of user interface which extends the desktop metaphor of the graphical user interface to make tasks, not files and folders, the primary unit of interaction. Instead of showing entire hierarchies of information, such as a tree of documents, a task-focused interface shows the subset of the tree that is relevant to the task-at-hand. This addresses the problem of information overload when dealing with large hierarchies, such as those in software systems or large sets of documents. The task-focused interface is composed of a mechanism which allows the user to specify the task being worked on and to switch between active tasks, a model of the task context such as a degree-of-interest (DOI) ranking, a focusing mechanism to filter or highlight the relevant documents. The task-focused interface has been validated with statistically significant increases to knowledge worker productivity. It has been broadly adopted by programmers and is a key part of the Eclipse integrated development environment. The technology is also referred to as the "task context" model and the "task-focused programming" paradigm.

History The task-focused interface was invented by Mik Kersten during his PhD at the University of British Columbia in 2004. Kersten previously worked on the aspect-oriented programming team at Xerox PARC and combined the idea of crosscutting aspects and task management. Early precursors to the task-focused interface include the attention-reactive interface metaphor and the "Edit & Read Wear" document editing tool. The first description of the task-focused interface concepts appeared in a 2005 AOSD conference publication. The first implementation of the task-focused interface started as an open source project called Eclipse Mylyn, created in March 2005. The technology evolved with input and contributions from thousands of open source community developers. In 2006, a research group and the University of Victoria demonstrated the utility of the task-focused interface and degree-of-interest model for ontology visualization. In 2007, the Mylyn implementation was bundled with the majority of Eclipse IDE distributions. In 2008, alternate implementations of task-focused interface became available, including NetBeans Cubeon, and the Tasktop Pro tool for project managers. By 2009, most agile software development and application lifecycle management tools provided integration with Mylyn. In 2011 NBTaskFocus got introduced which provided Mylyn like task-focused features in NetBeans IDE.

Technology

The primary goal of a task-focused interface is to scope the information shown in a computer application to just that relevant to the user's current task. Based on the user's interactions, each uniquely identifiable element of information available to the user is assigned a degree-of-interest (DOI) ranking. The more frequently and recently a user has interacted with an element of information, the higher the DOI for that element for that task. The DOI rankings for the information elements can be used within a task-focused interface in four ways. Elements below a certain DOI threshold can be filtered to reduce the number of elements presented. Elements can be ranked according to their DOI; for instance, the elements of highest interest can be shown at the top of a list. The elements can be decorated with colours to indicate ranges of DOI. Finally, the display of structured information elements can be automatically managed based on DOI; for instance, text corresponding to elements with low DOI can be automatically elided. The DOI value for each information element interacted with as part of a task can be derived from a stored history of interaction events recorded as the user works with the application. This approach requires a user to indicate the start of a task. The collection of all interaction events that take place during a single task is called a "task context". Task-focused interfaces have been demonstrated to be effective in reducing information overload and improving productivity. The Eclipse Mylyn project and NBTaskFocus for NetBeans IDE is an implementation of the Task-Focused Interface. Mylyn filters, sorts, highlights, folds, and manages tree expansion for numerous views within the Eclipse IDE based on the currently active task. NBTaskFocus filters project panels and manages automatic task context for NetBeans IDE.

References

External links Eclipse Mylyn Project Archived 2012-11-04 at the Wayback Machine NBTaskFocus project for NetBeans IDE Archived 2021-01-18 at the Wayback Machine

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Task-focused interface

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Task-focused interface claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Task-focused interface before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Task-focused interface ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Task-focused interface

In research: Task-focused interface appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Task-focused interface in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Task-focused interface is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics User interface techniques, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Task-focused interface outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Task-focused interface in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Task-focused interface means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Task-focused interface out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Task-focused interface in simple terms?

Why does Task-focused interface matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Task-focused interface?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Task-focused interface.