https://uxdesign.cc/how-to-build-a-task-flow-users-know-4ae6c54a0a33

In our podcast, Kate Rutter and I talk a lot about task flows and how helpful they can be when designing a product interaction. The problem is, I’ve rarely met a designer or product manager who understands how to make them well, and I haven’t found a very good guide to building them online. So, I guess I’m writing one? You’re welcome.

Please note, this post is not about how great task flows are or why you would use them. I’ll probably write that up later, or you can listen to the podcast . I’m just going to show you an example of how to make a simple task flow. If it’s helpful, maybe I’ll add another post about how to make a more complex one or how to combine them into a task flow Voltron…I mean a useful system diagram.

The Task

First, we need to pick a task to show. It should be something that users actually want to achieve. It also should be something pretty standalone. This will make more sense later, but you want to break things down into low-level tasks which you can then combine into larger flows.

For example, if you’re working on a product like Turbotax, “do your taxes” isn’t a single flow. It’s probably a combination of lots and lots of lower-level tasks like “add personal information” and “submit state forms” and “enter your payment information,” etc.

For this post, we’re going with something even simpler. Our task will be to Add a Song to a Playlist.

A few important points:

• Task flows are almost always UI independent, so it doesn’t matter if this is on a phone, web, physical device, etc.
• We will assume that this flow is part of some sort of music listening service that lets you make multiple playlists.
• We’re going to assume that the user has already found a song they like and that the Find a Song flow is a separate one that is not shown here.
• We’ll also assume that the user is already logged in and that they have permission to make playlists.
• We will also assume that there is SOME widget or affordance (I’m avoiding the term button because, again, this shouldn’t depend on a specific UI element), and that the user has interacted with that affordance to indicate that they want to Add This Song to A Playlist.
• Ok fine. The user pushed the Add Song to Playlist button. I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY.

So. What happens next?

Thinking Through the Flow

This should be pretty simple, right? We’re just going to add a song to a playlist. We’ve already found the song. How hard could this be?

How about something like: