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Authors

Tanya McGill

Abstract

Organizations rely heavily on applications developed by end users, yet lack of experience and training may compromise the ability of end users to make objective judgments about the quality of their applications.

This study investigated the ability of end users to assess the quality of applications they develop. The results confirm that there are differences between the system quality assessments of end user developers and independent expert assessors.

In particular, the results of this study suggest that end users with little experience may erroneously consider the applications they develop to be of high quality. Some implications of these results are discussed.

Sample

Items on which there were major differences of opinion
Items on which there were major differences of opinion

Several individual questionnaire items stood out in illustrating problems that many end user developers had in recognizing quality problems with their applications.

If end user developers have serious misconceptions such as these, it could pose significant risks to the security and integrity of organizational data and to the quality of organizational decision making.

Publication

2002, Journal of End User Computing, Volume 14, Number 3, July-September, pages 1-15

Full article

User-developed applications