DESIGNING A WEB APPLICATION USING AN ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH APPROACH

摘要

In this research-in-progress, I am working with users in collaboratively designing and developing a web application that can serve as a support tool for stock analysis. I am using an ethnographic research approach called the Strip Resolution process (Agar, 1986) as a research tool to better explain the process by which I develop and validate an interpretation as a researcher. When using the Strip Resolution process as a research tool, I found that it could also be used as a means of understanding users' requirements to better design the application. I begin this paper by introducing the questions that motivate my research and the research approach I have chosen as being suitable to study those questions. One element of my research approach is the Strip Resolution process. In the second section, I discuss what constitutes this process. In the third section, I trace how this ethnographic approach enabled me to better understand one of the major work processes (called "evaluating stock holding") of stock analysts, who are the primary end users for this application. This understanding of the stock analysts' work process improved my understanding of their requirements ― thereby, enabling better design of the application to meet their needs. In the final section, I compare the use of the Strip Resolution process for developing a web application with other approaches such as Extreme Programming (Beck, 2000), Adaptive Software Development (Cockburn, 2001; Highsmith, 2000), and UML-based web application development (Conallen, 2000; Rosenberg and Scott, 2001).