Task Analysis Assignment
CSIS 375: Introduction to Computer-Human Interaction
Section One: Task Analysis Interview Questions and Answers
Task Observed: Filling prescriptions.
Interviewee: My Husband, Tim Nguyen. He is a Pharmacy Technician.
1. What types of tasks do you perform at your job on a normal day?
Answer: My job tasks include mainly filling customer prescriptions, answering any phone calls
that come in, and occasionally cashiering in the pharmacy.
2. What do you mean when you say part of your job is to fill customer prescriptions? What all
does that entail?
Answer: We get a prescription from the doctor’s office, the pharmacy technicians input that
into the pharmacy system. The prescription then gets sent to a pharmacist who reviews and
approves the prescription. After that the prescription is sent back to the pharmacy technician
who then finds the appropriate medication and manually counts out and “fills” the
prescription.
3. How many prescriptions would you say your pharmacy typically fills per day?
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Answer: We fill between 200-300 prescriptions on an average day. We are a busier pharmacy
since we are close to a hospital.
4. How does your pharmacy track how many prescriptions are currently waiting to be filled?
Answer: The same application where we receive and input prescriptions tracks all that
information.
5. How many pharmacy technicians are typically on shift at the same time?
Answer: Usually there are three technicians working at the same time.
6. Is there usually more than one pharmacy technician filling prescriptions at once?
Answer: Yes, but usually no more than two pharmacy techs work on filling prescriptions at
once. If we have a lightly staffed day or a callout there is one tech cashiering and one tech
filling prescriptions.
7. What do the pharmacy technicians who are cashiering do when they are not actively helping
customers check out their prescriptions?
Answer: When I am cashiering for a shift, or part of my shift, if I don’t have customers I will
alphabetize the prescriptions waiting for pickup because it makes them easier to locate when
customers come in to pick up their prescriptions. I also make sure to keep the front area of
the pharmacy tidy when I have the time.
8. What types of parameters are set by the pharmacy for how you go about filling a prescription?
Answer: They just request that we are as accurate as possible. How we achieve that is up to
us, whether we double count or triple count. Since all the pill counts are manual counts its
kind of whatever works best and whatever way we are most accurate.
9. Is there any product or system you use that automatically counts the pills for you to double
check your work?
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Answer: No, we have to keep track of all of our counts manually. There isn’t a system or
machine that tracks the pill counts for us.
10. How do you currently keep track of pills while you are actively filling a prescription?
Answer: I try to count in increments of five to keep track on my first count, then I double
check a second time. If my second count matches up I package up the pills and close out the
prescription.
11. What is the most frustrating aspect of filling prescriptions?
Answer: Being interrupted in the middle of counting pills to fill a prescription is one of the
more frustrating things about my work. There are times during the day when I will have to
come back to the same prescription three or four times before I can close it out because of
phone calls or customer questions.
12. Are there a lot of interruptions while you are counting pills?
Answer: Yes, we get interrupted pretty often when we are counting. Between answering the
phone, answering any questions the pharmacists have for us throughout the day, and helping
cashier if they get backed up at the register in the pharmacy, there are a lot of things that we
help out with.
13. Are there any specific and consistent interruptions that affect how efficiently you are able to fill
prescriptions?
Answer: Phone calls checking on the status of prescriptions are the biggest issue. Since we
don’t have a way for customers to check on their prescription (other than the text notification
they can opt in to when we close out the prescription in our system) we get a lot of calls
about whether a customer’s prescription is ready for pickup or not, or when their refills are
due to be filled, etc.
14. How many phone calls would you say your pharmacy receives per day?
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Answer: We probably receive somewhere around 50-60 phone calls during a normal 8-hour
shift. If there are two technicians filling prescriptions, we try to swap on and off on answering
calls.
15. Do technicians who are cashiering for their shift answer the phones at all?
Answer: No, my pharmacy prefers we don’t answer the phone when we are cashiering
because they don’t want us getting held up on a long phone call and making customers at the
register wait. If you get stuck working on an insurance issue it can be a long call, so that’s why
they have the technicians who are filling prescriptions answer calls.
16. What do you do with the pills you are counting when your task is interrupted?
Answer: We just leave them in the counting tray until we can resume working on that
prescription.
17. Once you have filled a prescription, is there a process for notifying the customer their
prescription is ready?
Answer: We close out the prescription in our system and it sends a text notification to the
customer, so long as they have text notifications set up with our pharmacy. Otherwise, we
have to give them a call to let them know their prescription is ready for pickup.
18. Is there any way for customers to check on the status of their prescription without speaking to
someone at your pharmacy, such as an interactive phone system?
Answer: No, unless they receive a text notification when we close out the prescription in our
system there isn’t currently a way for them to check on prescriptions or anything else without
speaking to someone in the pharmacy.
19. What is the age range of your customers?
Answer: Probably anywhere from age 18 to age 90 or 95 even. We have a whole range of ages
and genders come through the pharmacy.
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20. Does your pharmacy have any type of interactive phone system set up already? Not for
checking prescriptions, but for any type of automated direction?
Answer: I believe the part of the store that is separate from the pharmacy does, yes. It lets
people select what they are calling about and filters them to the right department or
extension.
Section Two: Observation of Task Performance
In observing Tim and his fellow pharmacy technicians, it is clear that interruptions are a constant
issue. Since a large part of the task of filling prescriptions involves focusing on counting a specific
number of small pills, interruptions can cause errors in the form of incorrectly filled prescriptions, which
then affects the “on hand” count of pills of any given medicine.
One of the main interruptions that plague the pharmacy technicians is phone calls from
customers. Often these questions are as simple as: checking on the status of their prescription, asking
about a prescription refill date, or a customer wanting to check on whether their prescription was
actually sent to that specific pharmacy. They get these calls on almost a 5-10 minute basis during the
busy part of the workday.
There was not much of a difference between how Tim described the process of filling
prescriptions and how I observed it happening. When a pharmacy technician is interrupted by a phone
call in the middle of counting pills to fill a prescription, they often must restart the whole process over
again when they come back to it to ensure the task is completed accurately.
Section Three: Description of the task to be automated
Tim would like for his pharmacy to increase the visibility and accessibility of an automated way
for customers of his pharmacy to check on the status of their prescriptions, or the status of any
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prescription refills they may have upcoming. An interactive phone system would work best since that is
the primary way most customers currently check on their prescriptions, but a website where customers
could check on that information would also be a help.
A straightforward interactive phone system that allows the customers to check the status of
their prescriptions by inputting their information and having the phone system report back to the
customer on whether a prescription is finished, and if it is not yet completed give them an expected
completion time. A central system that compiles the necessary information of the pharmacy’s customers
would be necessary, such as contact and personal information. The task would require the ability of a
system to send notifications via phone and email once a prescription is closed out by the pharmacy
technician or pharmacist. The system should have the ability to enable customers to have some sort of
account access where they are able to view upcoming prescription refills and the status of their
prescriptions. The system should include the ability for users to add information that would also update
their record with the pharmacy, such as: approved alternate pick-up persons, new address or contact
information, or moving the prescription to a different pharmacy location.
Having a system in place to answer simple inquiries from customers without interrupting the
work of the pharmacy technicians would significantly improve their productivity and cut down on
counting errors and errors in pill inventory. Since the user base includes users from a wide age range it
would need to be as user friendly as possible, otherwise the users will likely bypass the system and
continue to go straight to the workers at the pharmacy with their questions.
Section Four: Description of User Base
The user base would include both workers at Tim’s pharmacy and customers of the pharmacy.
Between employees and customers of the pharmacy, there are likely to be somewhere between 250-
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300 users per day. That number is based on the typical number of prescriptions the pharmacy fills on
average per day.
As Tim mentioned in the interview, they have customers from all walks of life having
prescriptions filled at his pharmacy. The age range of the user base is likely somewhere between 18
years of age all the way up to 90 years or more. Some of the users are likely to be fairly tech savvy, but
most users will need a simple, easy to operate system.
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