Introduction
The following statement provides a framework for this discussion:
Users are the ones that truly understand the business, not technical staff, therefore, it makes sense for all information systems of the organization should be developed by end users.
The system being considered in this discussion is the website for Syracuse University’s College of Law (law or law school). The law school’s website has become a strategic administrative tool for the law school. As an information resource it provides useful information to its constituencies. It is also used as a recruitment tool for prospective students. In the following section I will provide a background of the system and will describe the reasons the law school embarked on this revision and update. I will also describe some of the goals for the new website. Following that I will discuss what the research has to say about user involvement. The application of end user involvement in the law school’s project is then discussed where I will describe some of the issues surrounding user involvement. I will conclude the paper by summarizing some of the lessons learned on this project.
Background and Context
Over the past eight months the law school has been involved in a major overhaul of its website. The website has several strategic purposes that make it a critical tool for the law school. It is an information resource for students, alumni, faculty and staff, a recruitment tool for the admissions function, and a source for legal resources.
The College of Law website has been through several iterations from its inception in 1996. The original website was developed out of an experimental project that started in the law school’s library. In its first iteration it was primarily a “who we are” type of website. It contained contact information and a limited amount of descriptive information about the law school. The website was managed by one person but almost anyone affiliated with the law school was allowed to directly make changes to the website, including students, faculty and staff of the law school. There were few (if any) controls or standards on development and content. As the law website developed and as the Web, in general, became popular the administration of the law school recognized the strategic importance of a website and authorized the hiring of a full time web administrator in 1998.
During 1998 and 1999 the website was completely re-engineered with a focus on providing useful information to those visiting the site and a professional visual presentation. This brought the website out of its R & D mode and into production as a key component of the law school. This resulted in the design and implementation a basic navigation structure and an overall visual design that was applied throughout the site. Site administration and the ability to make updates to the site were removed from the many users that previously had this ability. The update function was limited to the web administrator. These changes resulted in a controlled development environment and provided a consistent user interface resulting in a professional looking website. On-line forms were implemented giving prospective students the ability to contact the law school directly from the website. Expanded information was provided about the faculty and administration. A downloadable application for admission to the law school was made available and proved to be a significant addition to the website. In the first year the law school found that 25 percent of their applications were coming from the website. Today over 50 percent of applications are received via the web. During this period there was some user input into the design of the website but the administrator felt that it was his responsibility to be the guardian of the site so he reserved final decision on any changes to the site. Although this model was supported by the law school administrative staff it became a divisive issue. Departments became more and more interested in providing content for their constituencies on the website but the then web administrator was unwilling to allow equal access for everyone.
In 2001 a second major revision was done to the website. This time the design and development of the website was contracted out to company that specialized in website development. This revision made available user tools and dynamic content through the addition of a database. There was user input into the design of the web but the law school relied heavily on the expertise of the company hired to design the look and navigation of the website. The user input that was solicited did result in new features being added. For example, the law library wanted a way to manage electronic reserves. This feature was built into the site but unfortunately was never used. The faculty wanted the ability to do their own updates to their curriculum vitae and wanted to be able to add course materials to the website. A sophisticated management tool was built for the faculty to manage all areas of their section of the website. Today, fewer than 5 five faculty members regularly use this tool. They prefer to send update requests to the web administrator.
As was stated earlier the law school is currently involved in another major overhaul of their website. As it is with most professional websites the law school has settled into a routine of refreshing the visual design of their website every few years. New functionality is built in with each revision. For this round of revisions the law school has also contracted out the design and development of the website. The goals are to present a new visual design, to add the ability for law school departments to manage their sections of the website where they own the content, to make the site more dynamic through the addition of more database based content, to add support for the Office of Advancement through enhanced tools for alumni, and to add support for the office of the Director of Communications.
During this design and development cycle significant user participation has been solicited. We will look at the results of this participation later in this paper.
End User Involvement
In discussing end user involvement (EUI) in systems design and development within the context of a website, the users I am referring to are the users who are employed by the law school and who are the content owners. Users are not the visitors to the website for purposes of this discussion.. When discussing design and development within this context I am referring to the visual presentation as design and to the technology that stores manipulates, and presents data within the confines of the design as development.
User involvement is a topic of much discussion in the field of information management. Almost all agree that there are many benefits to be gained by having users involved in the design and development of the system. When considering that the most serious constraints on the design of a system are not technical in nature (Lucas, 1971) it seems natural to have users involved in this process. Involvement in the process may take several forms—formal, informal, direct, indirect, strong, and weak (Butler and Fitzgerald, 1997). For purposes of this paper let’s look at informal, direct, and indirect involvement.
Users of the website participate informally in the design of the site by the mere fact that they own content on the site. That is, by having content placed on a website they participate in its design and development because the design must accommodate their content and the development must be able to store and present their content when requested. Users also participate directly by adding content through the content management tools available on the website. Users’ indirect involvement comes from their ability to influence those who may have direct involvement. For example, someone whose opinion is valued by decision makers may indirectly influence design and development simply by making their opinions known. At the law school some of those who are indirectly involved include the deans, the faculty, and students. One elusive fact is that depending on the level of access the developer (or IT staff) has in the organization they may or (most likely) may not know who is influencing the development process. It is far better when the person or persons who have direct involvement in the process also have the authority to make recommendations and changes.
There is also the concept of “participation by doing” and “participation by advice” (Butler and Fitzgerald, 1997). Participation by doing is accessible through tools that are available to any computer user. In web development everyone believes they can create a website. Every year student organization members come to the IT staff of the law school wanting to know how they can access the website so they can design and put pages up for the organization the represent. They believe that to participate in the website they have to “do”. Advice is another way for users to participate in web development. Advice can take two forms. First is a notice and request to have some content placed on a website. The second is to make a recommendation for content, layout, or design. The risk users face with the second form is that during a redesign phase advice will be given but then ignored by the developer.
Nandhakumar and Jones (1997) discuss physical, social, and individual constraints that limit user involvement. Physical constraints refer to our physical make up restrict the interactions that can take place. Although the desire and opportunity may be present, time and space may not allow interaction. Social constraints may restrict interactions based on the organizations social routines. Social constraints seem to have a strong influence on user-developer cooperation. With the law school website, much of the resistance to user involvement straddled departmental lines. When the law library was primarily responsible for web development individuals in other departments had little input into hoe the website was managed or developed. When website development was moved outside of the library to a web administrator who reports to a different department head the library’s participation and influence was significantly reduced. Individual constraints refer to (among other things) the identity, experience, and social skills of the individual.
It is important for the user to be involved in the design and development of any system because the user is dependent on the system to successfully get their work done. In the case of a website the law school relies on the site to produce a predictable percentage of applications. The Office of Advancement wants to rely on the website as a tool to assist in fund raising. The faculty relies on the website to provide information to students and their colleagues about their professional background and their area of expertise. Other departments rely on the website for similar reasons.
Application of End User Involvement
Let’s take a look at end user involvement in the development of the College of Law website. From the start of this phase of revision the desire was to get as much user involvement as possible in the design and development of the new website. The IT department (where the web administrator resides) at the college of law has experienced some of the difficulties mentioned in the research as barriers to user involvement. First of all the organizational structure of the law school has been one that hasn’t been conducive to user involvement in web development. As was mentioned previously in this paper, an early iteration of the law school website suffered from many individuals participating in the development of the design and content of the site. When the development of the site was centralized to the web administrator many users took that to mean that their input (advice) was not desired. For a long time users believed that if they couldn’t do it themselves, they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) participate in the site. The law school also suffered from a lack of competence in involving users in the development process (Kyng, 1994). The last two web administrators were inexperienced and probably lacked enough self confidence to include and support users in the design and development process.
The Director of Communications for the law school has taken the lead on design and content development. This has produced several benefits. Because she is responsible for all communications, both print and electronic, the Director of Communications has the responsibility for consistency across all of our publications. The website will reflect the same identity as our print publications. Another second benefit is that the Director of Communications is better positioned within the organization to solicit feedback from all departments. At the start of the process feedback was solicited from each department. Once collected and analyzed, a meeting was held with each department to discuss and clarify their suggestions. Feedback was requested from the developers as to the feasibility of incorporating suggestions and requests with respect to the scope of the project and time constraints. In cooperation with the Director of IT Services users were kept informed on progress and were told which features would be added and which would not be added. If something could not be added they were given specific reasons why.
New tools have been added to the site that will give users direct control over the content they own. Most users are very excited about the prospect of being able to add content without the need to send it to someone, be placed in a queue, and wait until someone got around to it.
Overall this approach worked quite well for everyone involved. A preview of the new website has just been made available to users. The feedback has been positive and the users seem very pleased with the results. The law library in particular has had significant involvement in this round of development. They articulated the requirements of a website geared to providing access to library resources quite well. And the developers listened. The library section of the website presents library resources in a way that makes sense to the librarians and a way that they believe will be useful to their constituencies. At this point no user testing has been done. Another section department that provided a lot of feedback was the Office of Advancement and Alumni Affairs. They described a need to for a web based database where alumni could log on to access and update their own information. Once logged on they should be able to search for other alumni (law school only) and contact them. The alumnus should have the option of allowing their information to be displayed or suppressing the display. Authorized staff should be able to generate mailing lists and contact information for alumni. All of these features were able to be built in to the new website. There were a few requests that were outside of the scope of this project because of either time or cost constraints. If a request did not make it into this revision the reason was provided to the user.
In every case the users were satisfied. I believe there were several reasons for this.
1. We asked for their involvement.
2. By meeting with them we showed that we not only received their suggestion but acted upon them.
3. We explained to them if a suggestion or request wasn’t being used and why.
Conclusion
End user involvement in SDLC is important for several reasons. First it ensures that you are designing a system based on the end users need. This avoids a technology centric design and results in a user centric design. There are lots of things that can be done with technology that are not necessarily useful to the user. The goal of user involvement in the design and development process is to ensure end user satisfaction and utility.
Although end user involvement is critical to the success of the design and development process clearly defined control must me established. A control can take the form of access controls, content ownership, and technical development controls. The technical implementation should be closely controlled by the developers. Users may believe they know the technical requirements for implementing a design but the developers have no ability to measure ability.
References
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December 2003 © Ronald M. Denby
