Using service responsibility tables to supplement UML in analyzing e-service systems

a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Systems analysis and design Work system method Service responsibility table Unified modeling language This paper proposes using Service Responsibility Tables (SRTs) as a tool in analyzing e-service systems. First it discusses difficulties and deficiencies of using formal modeling languages such as UML in analyzing e-service systems. It proposes using SRTs as an informal language and lightweight analytical tool to be used by business professionals in analyzing e-service systems. SRTs are based on a service value chain framework but do not rely on abstract concepts and constructs, and therefore can be used by business professionals to supplement UML. We suggest a set of heuristics for transforming SRTs into two key UML diagrams, thereby illustrating how SRTs can be used as a bridge from relatively informal modeling by business professionals to formal modeling techniques for systems design and implementation by IT professionals. The advent of the Internet and other modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) has led businesses worldwide to embrace e-commerce and e-service. E-commerce has been widely accepted as a viable business model for buying and selling products/ services over the Web, leading to a new paradigm known as e-service, or electronic service, defined as the provision of service over electronic networks [42]. Common examples of such e-service include online package tracking, email notification of order status, and more recently mobile banking. The advantages of providing customers with e-service include reducing operating expenses, allowing for person-alization, and improving customer satisfaction [8,40]. Through e-service, enhanced service experience and higher levels of customer satisfaction tend to increase revenues and profitability [42]. For customers, the benefits of e-service include addressing new business needs, saving money and time in traveling, and avoiding awkward interpersonal encounters [32]. Whereas e-service systems may offer many benefits to businesses and their customers, developing e-service systems is challenging [56]. E-service is predominately self-service [40]. In other words, customer use of e-service systems implies coproduction of service, frequently requiring customers to engage in new behaviors [33]. There is a general agreement on the importance of user involvement during systems analysis and design [10,55]. The self-service nature of e-service poses several difficulties in effectively involving users' participation in systems analysis and design stages. First, ordinary customers, i.e. the intended users of e-service systems, often have difficulty identifying and describing the capabilities and features they want [33]. Even if the system …