Task based to Communication based approach

We have all been trained to design for Task. Most UI books talk about Task analysis and Task based designs. This might be useful for enterprise software or admin tool software. But at any or every level there is a communication that is happening. Why not look at the UI design from Communication point of view rather that from the view of tasks.

Communication approach will break a problem based on what is to be communicated and what needs to be established before moving on. For products like Yahoo! I guess this methodology is very useful. The product should be broken down into step of information. How should be communicate with the user? This is to be broken down into logical steps – like;

Step 1 : establish the purpose of the product.
Step 2 : what can a user do with it
Step 3 : What is the extent of information that is available to him.
Step 4 : How all can a user access it
And so on…

Once the communication is established then comes the tasks, operations and screens. This communication then has to be distributed into screen. One screen can be enough for all communication or it be distributed into steps based on the needs. To be on track it’s good to define an objective to every screen so that you know what is to be achieved in terms of communication (what has been established and what should come next).

There may not be anything new. Most of the people have already said all these things. This is all common sense; Isn’t it? But if you are a designer ask yourself how much you understand design and how much of it do you actually follow.