Leder en prototypbaserad systemutveckling till en ökad effektivitet i slutprodukten?

Abstract

Although the use of the system development method called “prototyping” is widely spread there is no clear empirical evidence of the method´s actual impact (in this case an increased efficiency) on the end product. There are success stories that describes how the use of prototyping results in an increased efficiency in the end product. But these success stories could not be seen as empirical evidence since they are not performed in a scientific manner.

The purpose of this study is thus to investigate if there is any empirical evidence to the success stories´ statement that the use of prototyping in the developing process for information system increases the efficiency in the end product.

To investigate this a total of 18 usability tests (measuring the efficiency) divided into three sets of tests has been performed with people of the actual user group. The users were randomly divided into three different groups with six (6) users in every group. One group for each set of usability tests. One group was tested on the original beta version (developed without prototyping) of the system and one group was tested on the end version (developed with prototyping).

The prototyping process took place in between those two tests and included the third group/set of usability tests. The purpose of this prototyping process/set of usability test was to increase the usability in the system.

The result from the statistical comparison between the beta version and the end version shows no significant differences between the two. Hence no valid results can be concluded from this study. One of the main reasons to the insignificant result is probably the low number of participants. The result thus creates the need for future (bigger) studies in the area.