Can we Take User Responses at Face Value? Exploring Users’ “Self-stated” and “Derived” Importance of Utilitarian versus Hedonic Software Features

Empirical studies in the product development literature have shown that the users’ self-reported importance of product attributes differs from the derived importance of product attributes obtained through the attributes’ correlation with an external criterion such as user satisfaction. However, no study has examined this phenomenon in the context of software products. This investigation is important because the present-day software requirement-prioritization techniques are based on capturing users’ self-reported importance of new software product features. As such, I develop a method in the study to capture the derived user importance of new features. The findings show that the implicitly derived importance of software attributes differs from the importance rankings assigned to them using requirement prioritization techniques. Further, I found that the implicitly derived user importance to identify the determinants of user satisfaction more accurately than the prioritization techniques based on self-stated user importance. I discuss the implications of this promising new approach for practice and future research in requirements prioritization.