Task Analysis

Concept of the skill

Use when auditing a route, defining a route contract, reviewing onboarding or setup flows, diagnosing why a page feels confusing, or when the user asks about top tasks, time-to-value, branching, dead ends, or task complexity.

Coverage

Goal-driven UX analysis for any route or flow: identifying the actor and scenario from persona / journey contracts, extracting the top task for a route, breaking tasks into sequential subtasks with skip paths and blocked states, scoring task friction across five dimensions (discoverability, cognitive load, effort, trust, recovery), identifying breakpoints (dead ends, hidden next steps, excessive branching, unclear success states, misleading value presentation, mobile-only friction, role / permission confusion), and producing the primary / secondary / supporting hierarchy contract for the first viewport that hands off to layout and composition skills. Applies to route audits, onboarding flow reviews, setup wizards, multi-step processes, and any page where "it feels confusing" needs a structured diagnosis. Includes a five-step analysis protocol, a structured output template, an anti-pattern list (Nielsen-first heuristic critique, "rendered correctly" as proof, ignoring skip paths, decorative polish over task completion, fictional persona detail), and a verification checklist that confirms the actor and scenario were named explicitly rather than assumed.

Philosophy of the skill

UX quality is not about how a page looks — it is about whether the page supports the user's top task. Without task analysis, agents default to generic heuristic critique ("add more whitespace," "reduce clutter") that sounds professional but changes nothing about task completion.

This skill exists because aesthetic-first design reviews produce recommendations that do not address why users abandon flows. Task analysis forces the question: what is the user trying to accomplish, and where does the route break that goal? Once the goal is explicit, every layout, copy, and interaction decision can be measured against task support rather than personal taste — and the conversation moves from subjective debate ("I think this looks better") to falsifiable claim ("this change reduces friction at the discoverability dimension for step 2").

Workflow

Use the ordered phases, checklists, and guardrails in the sections below as the canonical workflow for this skill. When multiple subsections describe steps, follow them in the order presented.

If you cannot state the user's goal, top task, and next step, you are not analyzing the UX yet.