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Section 3 - Requirements analysis in
the WIS Development Life Cycle
The goal of requirements analysis is to gather
the information necessary to develop a system that will
fulfill the business objectives of an organization. In
the case of a Web-based information system, requirements
analysis includes defining the objectives of the site;
gathering information about its possible users and their
needs, its content and the way in which it will be
presented; and generating specifications and
recommendations necessary for designing the system.21 Four elements are central to
the analysis of a Web-based information system: problem
domain, users, content, and presentation.
Problem domain - Takahasi and Liang22, and Ginige23 emphasize the importance of
researching and understanding the problem domain of a
Web-based information system at the beginning of the
analysis phase. The problem domain refers to the
"overall environment within which the application will
exist."24 A clear definition and
understanding of the problem domain, and how it relates
to the organization's and its users' goals, is a
prerequisite for achieving accurate system requirements.
Although the definition of a problem domain is also
realized in traditional information system development,
the domain and stakeholders considered in the case of a
WIS are broader in scope.
Users - There is a close correlation
between users' requirements and business objectives.
Indeed, the goal of an organization is to provide
products and/or services that customers are willing to
purchase and/or use. Although users of a WIS have
various attributes that increase the challenges of
requirement elicitation and analysis, requirements
analysis is still an essential phase of the development
process. As Norton stresses in his article Applying
Cross-Functional Evolutionary Methodologies to Web
Development: "[u]ser participation in Web development -
although more difficult to achieve than in traditional
development - is just as essential to success."25
In general, users of a Web-based information
system are very diverse with regard to their numbers,
location, and attributes. WIS users tend to be more
numerous than users of a traditional information system,
which usually focuses on the needs of employees of a
single organization or a single unit within an
organization. The number of WIS users also tends to grow
with time. This has a direct impact on the structure of
the system, which needs to grow and evolve in
conjunction with the growth of its user base. WIS users
are located in different geographical areas, and, in
some cases, in different countries. As a result
traditional requirements analysis methods are
impractical in this context and must be modified to take
these new types of users into consideration.26 WIS users also have different
interests and goals when using the system, and possess
various browsing habits and levels of technical
expertise that need to be taken into account during the
analysis process in order to provide them with a system
that will address their needs and interests.
Although it is difficult to gather information
about WIS users, there are now more resources that
enable such identification. Developers can refer to
information gathered by survey organizations, such as
the Graphic,
Visualization, & Usability Center's (GVU), Cyberdialogue,
NetCraft,
or the NPD Group;
academic research papers; or even data gathered by the
organization from an existing Web-based information
system or Web site. Furthermore, today's users have
developed increasing levels of expertise in using the
Web and can be more helpful during the analysis process.
Deshpande and Hansen adequately expressed the
paradox of a WIS user's requirements analysis:
"Web-based applications frequently deal with completely
unidentified users, and their expectations
(requirements) and behavior patterns decide whether the
application is successful."27 Identifying complete users'
requirements is extremely critical since, when it is
incomplete, it has been identified as the top reason for
information systems project failure.28 Gathering accurate users'
requirements is also important since it serves as the
foundation for the next two elements of WIS analysis,
content and presentation, discussed below.
Content - Content refers to the pieces of
information contained in the Web application or system.
Content analysis is important for several reasons: the
dynamic and interactive characteristics of a WIS, how
the information is structured within the system, and the
types of data that will best address the users' and
organization's needs. As Garzotto et al noted in their
article on hypermedia analysis and design, "Content
analysis, however, requires deep knowledge of the users
profiles and tasks."29 Identifying what types of
users are likely to visit the site and the tasks that
they wish to accomplish with the application serves as a
guide to the content analysis in the system development
process.
Once the user profiles have been determined,
content analysis identifies what types of content are
most appropriate for the tasks the users want to
accomplish. In the context of Web-based information
systems, we can differentiate between static and dynamic
content. Static content refers to html pages, images, or
graphics. Dynamic content includes video clips, sound
tracks and animations, as well as information
dynamically generated at run time. There are a variety
of technologies - such as cookies, applets, servlets,
CGI programs, or computation-oriented applications -
that can be utilized to provide a WIS with requisite
dynamic features and interactivity. And although
specific technologies are selected during the design
phase of the system, it is still necessary for the WIS
analyst to recommend what types of features should be
used with a particular system based on the user
profiles. Interactivity is another important dimension
of content analysis, since it may be necessary for the
analyst to recommend a certain level or type of
interactivity that best corresponds to the intended
users. Recommendations on the types of elements and
features to include in a distance-learning site may be
an example.
Another complexity of Web-based information
systems resides in the fact that the system developers
"have to make assumptions about the kind of networks
their anonymous users access."30 The technology and the types
of networks connecting the users to the WIS impact the
sorts of content that should be included in a WIS.
Analysts, therefore, have to make content
recommendations based on the following criteria: the
users' profiles, the tasks that need to be accomplished
by the users, the Web technologies currently available
for these tasks, and their assumptions on the kinds of
technologies and networks to which their customers will
most likely have access - for example users' CPU time
and network bandwidth - while remaining within the
limits of the project's resources constraints.
Presentation - As mentioned previously,
users of Web-based information systems are acquiring
more experience and, by the same token, are becoming
more demanding as far as content presentation is
concerned. Thus, the visual appearance of a Web-based
information system is extremely important. Users have
now a plethora of sites they can visit and their
expectations grow with the number of sites available for
comparison-shopping.31 Therefore, offering an
attractive and easy-to-use interface can make the
difference between a system's success or failure.
According to Forrester Research, "poor web design will
result in a loss of 50 per cent of potential sales due
to users being unable to find what they want, and a loss
of 40 per cent of potential repeat visits due to an
initial negative experience."32 Although this is partly due to
content analysis and how the site is structured, it is
through presentation analysis that WIS analysts can
identify recommendations about the visual appearance
that an interface should have in order to be most
attractive to specific users. The level of technical
expertise of an organization's targeted users may be one
example of how it can influence the visual appearance of
an interface. For example, this may prompt the analyst
to recommend easy-to-use and simple navigation features
because of the intended users' low level of familiarity
with the Web. Other elements that analysts need to take
into consideration are related to the types of browsers,
screen size and resolution that will be used by the
system's users. It may be necessary for analysts to
recommend certain features or interfaces in order to
satisfy the profile of a particular system's users.
Conclusion - Problem domain, users,
content, and visual appearance are main considerations
in the requirements analysis of a Web-based information
system. These elements correspond to different
disciplinary emphases that are not encountered in the
development of a traditional information system.
Developing a WIS thus means putting together a team of
professionals from a wider range of disciplines than in
a traditional information system's development team.
Hansen et al propose a three
dimensional skills space, in which the skills of the
team members can be considered within a Management,
Technical, and Human Interaction dimension. "The
management vector is associated with the skills needed
to coordinate, regulate and integrate the Web system
with the 'organization' and existing information
systems. The technical vector includes computing,
networking and internet communications skills. The human
interaction vector is associated with graphics design,
layout, 'human communications' and presentation
skills."33 Developing a Web-based
information system, thus, requires new skills and new
approaches to systems development.
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