Task Analysis 🧩 Prompts

SUMMARY

Purpose: Task Analysis helps UX teams dissect and understand how users complete critical tasks — step-by-step — to optimise interactions, reduce friction, and align product design with real human behaviour.

Design Thinking Phase: Define

Time: 45–60 min session + 1–2 hours analysis

Difficulty: ⭐⭐

When to use:When existing products include high-friction user journeysWhen building or improving complex multi-step workflowsBefore instrumenting analytics or splitting A/B variations

What it is

Task Analysis is a structured method to break down how users perform activities to achieve specific goals within a product. It typically involves documenting each step a user takes, identifying pain points, cognitive demands, and moments of decision-making. This granular understanding helps designers anticipate issues and improve task flows strategically.

📺 Video by IxDF - Interaction Design Foundation. Embedded for educational reference.

Why it matters

Task Analysis deepens a team's grasp of real user behaviours — not just what users do, but why and how they do it. It exposes friction early, uncovers hidden user needs, and enables evidence-based workflow improvements. Teams who skip this step often end up redesigning features in hindsight. When used properly, task analysis drives smarter scoping, cleaner UI, and fewer usability issues post-launch.

When to use

• After customer interviews or usability testing
• Before redesigning a task-heavy journey like onboarding or checkout
• To compare novice and expert user behaviour for the same task

Benefits

• Rich Insights: Helps uncover user needs that aren’t visible in metrics.
• Flexibility: Works across various project types and timelines.
• User Empathy: Deepens understanding of behaviours and motivations.

How to use it

Choose a key user task (e.g., booking a service, uploading a file). Conduct a contextual inquiry or observe a user perform the task via moderated testing. Document each action chronologically, including user goals, system responses, friction points, and emotional reactions.

• Start with a task scenario: e.g., "Book a one-way trip to Melbourne"
• Observe and record each user action during the process
• Note environmental/contextual factors influencing user behaviour
• Map actions to user goals — what’s the intention behind each step?
• Identify friction: delays, confusion, extra actions, or errors
• Prioritise steps with the highest cognitive load or dropout indicators
• Add potential opportunities for streamlining or support UX

Use the final breakdown to inform wireframes, UX writing, onboarding patterns, or product tours.

Example Output

Task: Upload ID documents for account verification

• Step 1: Find verification section in settings — user confused by labelling
• Step 2: Click “Upload documents” — modal opens, no guidance
• Step 3: Select file from phone — user unsure which file type is acceptable
• Step 4: Submit — error message appears, but error not explained
• Insights: Task requires more upfront guidance and better inline validation

Common Pitfalls

• Assuming known behaviour: Observing real users avoids blind spots that team members may not perceive.
• Rushing the task framing: A vague task yields unstructured or misleading data.
• Not accounting for context: Users may behave differently in noisy environments, on mobile, or under pressure.

10 Design-Ready AI Prompts for Task Analysis – UX/UI Edition

How These Prompts Work (C.S.I.R. Framework)

Each of the templates below follows the C.S.I.R. method — a proven structure for writing clear, effective prompts that get better results from ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, or any other LLM.

C.S.I.R. stands for:

• Context: Who you are and the UX situation you're working in
• Specific Info: Key design inputs, tasks, or constraints the AI should consider
• Intent: What you want the AI to help you achieve
• Response Format: The structure or format you want the AI to return (e.g. checklist, table, journey map)

Level up your career with smarter AI prompts.Get templates used by UX leaders — no guesswork, just results.Design faster, research smarter, and ship with confidence.First one’s free. Unlock all 10 by becoming a member.

Prompt Template 1: “Identify Drop-off Points in a Critical Workflow”

Identify Drop-off Points in a Critical Workflow

Context: You are a Product Designer auditing a multi-step onboarding flow for a web app.  
Specific Info: The drop-off rate is high at step 2 and 4. There is limited analytics available, and prior qualitative research points to confusion around personalisation questions and verification.  
Intent: Deeply analyse which user goals, expectations, or environmental factors may be causing abandonment.  
Response Format: Output a step-by-step task breakdown, flagging possible confusion or mismatched UX expectations. Suggest improvements grounded in behavioural design.

Ask clarifying questions if information is missing or ambiguous. End with a follow-up question for gathering more insight.