What is Top Task Analysis?
Top task analysis was originally created by Gerry Mcgovern who identified what tasks users most wanted to complete on the website, so that those tasks could be prioritized.We can use it to understand what questions and concerns a user has,and what questions they need addressing before they’re willing to take action.It also helps us to understand which of those questions and concerns matter to the most,’cause let’s be honest.When we come to buying a product and service,we have lots of questions,and not all those questions are equal.Some of them are absolute deal breakers,like is this company going to go out of business before they deliver the product?Some are just nice to know.Who’s behind this company?We need to understand what questions and objections matter,and that is where top task analysis comes in.
Why is Top Task Analysis so important?
We only have a few seconds to provide users with the help they want.In fact, when somebody lands on the website for example,we’ve only got about eight seconds to prove to them that website is invaluable.If we can’t, then they’re going to go elsewhere.After all, your competition is only a click away now,and Google lists them all nicely there for them to choose between.We have to quickly address any questions or concerns that people have,and we want to address those that are most important.But what is it that people want to know,and which of those questions is most important?
There is so much that we could say about our product and service.How do we know that we’re saying the right thing?This is a trap that people fall into all the time on their websites.You see, the thing is with a website, that it’s free to publish stuff online, so what do we do? We just answer every conceivable question that someone might have about your product or service.The problem is that amongst all of this noise of tiny tasks, little questions,things that people don’t care that much about, people end up struggling to find the things that are really important to them.
An example :-
This is from the world of user experience design. We’re all familiar with Microsoft Office, aren’t we?We’ve all used Word, and Excel, and PowerPoint,and all of these tools.Actually, these products are quite complicated,and quite difficult to use if you aren’t used to using them.So, Microsoft produced a knowledge base where they answered every question that somebody might have about using Microsoft Office,but they had a problem.Their customers satisfaction rating was incredibly low.People weren’t happy with the things they were finding on this site.
So, Microsoft reasoned that they weren’t answering the right questions, so they doubled down,and they wrote even more answers to commonly asked questions,and they posted them to this website.Do you know what happened?Actually, their customer satisfaction went down even further.Now, they hired Gerry McGovern who came in and ran a top task analysis.What he discovered is that they were answering,or prioritizing the wrong questions on the site.People couldn’t find the questions to the answer that they needed.Actually, the vast majority of people were only interested in the same,small handful of questions.The moment those were prioritized,the customer satisfaction rating went up.Exactly the same principle applies to our marketing campaigns,that if we focus on the right questions,our conversion rate will go up.
How do you run a Top Task Analysis?
Running top task analysis is actually very straightforward,and there’s a great article called A List Apart where Gerry McGovern talks you through how to run a top task analysis. The highlighted version is here:- Essentially, what you do is you start brainstorming every question, every object that a user might have about your product and service.You will end up with hundreds of questions about your product and service.What you then do is you start taking those questions,and combining any ones that are very similar to one another,and also removing anything that’s just really ridiculously specific,and then you’ll end up with a list of about 60 to 100 elements at the end of that.Now, you simplify those questions down into just a very simple statement.For example, anything to do with pricing,you group together, and just rename pricing.Anything to do with the product’s features,you just call features.So, you end up with this long list of different categories like that.
Then, you run a questionnaire on the website, a survey on your website, or social media,or email, wherever you want to push it out,and you ask people to rank that list of items by one to five.So, you give five points to the most important thing on that list to you,four to the next, three to the next, two the next,and then one to the final one of your top five.They just leave all the rest blank.You might think this is just utter madness to run a survey that’s got 60 to 100 options in it,but what that does is it forces people to think about what they want,and then look for it on the list,rather than just scan down the list,and go. So, we get to know what people really want,rather than you priming them by showing them certain things on the list.This technique works, and you’ll end up with a whole load of data about what questions really matter.What do you do with the results of your analysis?Okay.So, what you will find when you run a top task analysis that actually, only a handful,of 60 to 100 items are actually top tasks,things that really matter to people.The rest are really more of a distraction than anything.
What you do then is you focus in on those top questions,those top objections, or top tasks as Gerry calls them,and use those to inform our advertising,our website, they’re the things that we’re going to focus on.We can use it to shape everything from our Facebook ads,to our email campaigns, to our website.It can even be used to shape the information architecture,and the visual hierarchy of things like our landing pages,and it can be used to help us decide on what calls to action we should be prioritizing on our websites.What can we expect people to be doing at any particular time?So, top task analysis is absolutely invaluable for better understanding what it is people really care about.As you can see, top task analysis can be a great way of understanding people’s questions, and their objections,as well as what they’re trying to achieve.
Carrying out a top task analysis really isn’t that hard.It’s essentially a survey.However, tricky bit is shortlisting all of those different options that you’re going to present to users.To do that, remember to combine similar options,remove anything that’s really specific examples,and resist the urge to include ego tasks.In other words, things that you wish people wanted to do,but they probably don’t really.By carrying out a top task analysis,you’re going to have a much clearer pictures to the focus of your messaging and your campaigns.
What are the limitations of Top Task Analysis?
Top task analysis isn’t some magic solution that solves all the problems of the world,and it isn’t going to solve all of your marketing problems either.It’s actually very focused on one specific thing.It’s focused on enabling you to prioritize your messaging by understanding what questions and objections matter most to users.It won’t even help you understand what those questions and objections are in the first place.For that, you’re going to want to rely on the user research,but it is absolutely invaluable when it comes to working out what you should be focusing on in your campaigns,because most of sales and marketing is about answering people’s questions, and dealing with their objections.If you’re answering the right questions,and the right objections, you’ll find that your conversion rate increased.
Are there any tools to help with top task analysis?
Yes and no is the answer to this particular question.Yes, there is a plethora of tools, pretty much any survey tool you’ve already got will help you do a top task analysis because essentially,what you’re talking about is a single question with a 60 option multi-choice answer at the end of it.But obviously, that’s not going to look that elegant,or that sophisticated. It might be that your tool doesn’t allow you to support a numbered ranking next to each multi-choice option,in which case,you’ll probably want to split it into two questions.First of all, you say pick the five elements that are most important to you.Then, in the second question,you then ask them to rank those one to five, okay?
