Overview
The TaskTracer project at
Oregon State University
has been developing fully-functional prototypes of new task-oriented
personal computer environments that track a user's interactions with
all applications, automatically organize the user's information naturally
according to tasks, and intelligently leverage the collected data to make
desktop applications more task-aware. TaskTracer not only improves personal
productivity by reducing overhead interaction and cognitive costs, but
also will support collaboration in workgroups by allowing the sharing of
task profiles - records of how a user completed a task, incorporating both
the resources used, and high level records of actions on those resources.
Description
At the center of the TaskTracer project is the concept that almost all
workers organize their work into discrete and describable units, such as
projects, tasks or to-do items. Our approach will combine user input,
creative user interfaces, and machine learning to assign each observed
action (opening a file, saving a file, sending an email, cutting and
pasting information, etc.) to such a task for which it is likely being
performed.
Through this, we intend to support knowledge work, so that:
- All resources (email messages, documents, web bookmarks, contacts,
pictures, etc) are automatically organized together for workers by
their tasks (see figure on the right).
- Applications are aware of their current task, and adapt to support
it, like knowing exactly where a worker might want to save a file.
- Tools are available to help workers better recover their context
in a task after an interruption, showing them what they were working
on before the interruption.
- Personal information management is supported better, automatically
recording what workers did to complete a task, and helping them to
reuse that process for future similar tasks.
- Workgroup information is available, enabling them to see how other
members of their workgroup completed a task.
- Workflows are detected and analyzed, allowing for better understanding
of organizational work processes.
Full Abstract Here
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