A pragmatic approach to IS development and socio-technical evaluation

This paper provides an action research account of why and how UML use cases and socio-technical analysis were combined and used to support the development of an information system, using Multiview/WISDM as the framework of ideas. Significant learning points from, and the motivation for, the research is that a focus on task satisfaction and socio-technical evaluation, rather than on the broader concept of job satisfaction and a full, traditional socio-technical analysis, was more acceptable in practice as it related more clearly to the IS domain. The paper presents a socio-technical evaluation (STE) process, reflects on its application to a particular web-based project, and makes recommendations for its use in future ISD projects. The STE process consists of a task satisfaction survey (TSS), which draws on use cases as a template for investigating users’ perceptions of task efficiency, effectiveness, and enjoyment, supported by qualitative interviews in order to systematically identify, verify, and discuss the users’ problems and improvement proposals before and after IT implementation. The use cases constitute the context-specific, development-oriented link between the work system, systems development, and the STE process, which in turn helps ensure that the main goal of supporting and improving the work system through continuous development and deployment of an IT system is kept in mind.