Working Minds: A Practitioner’s Guide to Cognitive Task Analysis is a book designed to introduce the domain of Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) to those who have an interest in learning how to document cognitive expertise. In today’s information-heavy, cognitive-dependent world, determining how experts think (specifically, how they make decisions) is important to capture when training novices or designing systems that will aid that expert in his or her work.

Beth Crandall, Gary Klein, and Robert Hoffman all have a great deal of expertise in the field, and the book certainly represents that wealth of knowledge. The book is structured into three broad sections: an overview of CTA methods, a section the authors call “Finding Cognition”, and a section on specific applications of CTA. This is all followed by an appendix entitled “Guidance for Data Collection.”

I found the book organized in a confusing manner. The “Finding Cognition” section of the book laid out some of the problems that CTA is designed to solve, such as the rise of new information technologies. Additionally, the authors discuss their theory of macrocognition, which takes a broader, real-world view of cognition (versus the localized, specific cognitive phenomenon studied in the laboratory). I found this useful and wish the book started off with these chapters.

Cognitive Task Analysis relies on expert interviews in order to document aspects of macrocognition, and the interviews are often difficult to conduct. I kept wondering how to conduct an effective interview only to find those tips and tricks stuffed into the appendix. I would have rather had the appendix made an actual chapter and tied in with the first section that gave an overview of CTA methodology.

A downside I felt regarding the author’s expertise is that they have completed many successful CTA projects using their specific techniques, and those are the primary focus here. The book is not a survey of CTA methods, but instead a detailed description of a subset of methods that have worked well for the authors. This is disappointing, but understandable in that it allows for the authors to explore a few techniques deeply and ensures that the authors speak from experience.

I thoroughly enjoyed the final section of the book, which detailed applications of CTA from training, systems engineering, market research, and more. A convincing case is made for the usefulness of CTA when dealing with decision making in any context, and the rest of the book is designed to give the reader the tools with which to understand how decisions are made.

One final note: the authors often discuss conducting interviews that can take place for several hours or over the course of several days. This is realistic for these researchers, who run a company that is consulted by other agencies when they really need a CTA completed for a project. However, for someone like myself, there is no way on Earth that I am going to be able to conduct two-hour long interview sessions with any sailor. Therefore, the tools and methods presented in the book would have to be adapted for anyone working in a realistic environment. Despite this, the book provides an excellent starting point for learning about CTA and conducting CTA studies.