Audience directed models and software design: How developer mental models of users influence the design of enterprise system features.

摘要

Information science research frequently seeks to discover the means by which practitioners can use information technologies (IT) to accomplish their goals. From an organizational perspective, the goal of IT is generally presumed to be an increase in individual and/or organizational performance. A successful implementation of an information technology can therefore be thought of simplistically as one in which the use of the new technology improved performance. Prior research has shown that one determinant of improved performance is how well the functionality of an organization's information technologies fits with the user's tasks. Theories relating to IT acceptance, adoption and success suggest a positive relationship between the task the user needs to accomplish and the task the software was designed to accomplish, but little has been done to explain how the IT artifact makes design intent apparent to the user.; This research examines a possible relationship between design intent and fit: namely, how the designer's mental model of an enterprise system's intended use influences the design of the functionality and appearance of the application's component features. Using a positivistic case study methodology, mental models of intended use held by seven teams of enterprise system software developers were identified and classified. These models were then related to the developers' statements about their specific design decisions. The results confirm that developers' mental models influence the design of software UI in ways that are apparent to the end-user, and supports theories that suggest that software has a "spirit" that consists in part of an intended use. The research contributes to our understanding of the source of that spirit, and identifies specific ways in which software developers bias features towards a specific type of use.