The role of user involvement in requirements quality and project success

User involvement is the key concept in the development of useful and usable systems and has positive effects on system success and user satisfaction. This paper reports the results of interviews and a survey conducted to investigate the role of user involvement in defining user requirements in development projects. The survey involved 18 software practitioners working in software related development projects in 13 companies in Finland. In addition, eight software practitioners working in three companies were interviewed. By combining qualitative and statistical analysis, we examine how users are involved in development projects and how user involvement influences projects. The analysis shows that, although it is rare in development projects, early user involvement is related to better requirements quality. The analysis also shows that involving users and customers as the source of information is related to project success.

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