Task walkthrough for groupware evaluations

This paper advocates adapting the cognitive walkthrough usability evaluation method (UEM) for the evaluation of groupware. They have introduced a task-analysis based approach to enhancing scenarios and are including some contextual information in the task description. There is also an increased focus on group-interaction effects.

They break the information used by evaluators down into the following parts:
Scenario: High-level description of activities related to achieving a specific outcome. Scenarios contain the following information: high level activity description, user specification, group goal, set of circumstances
Tasks: Basic components of scenario, usually explicitly stated in scenario activity description. Describes what occurs in a scenario event, but not how it occurs.
Individual subtasks: The loosely-coupled, individual work in a task
Collaborative subtasks: The tightly-coupled work in a task. Carried out by a mechanic of collaboration
Actions: Common ways to perform a collaborative subtask

Group Task Analysis for Groupware Usability Evaluations, 2001
David Pinelle, Carl Gutwin
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