User-Developed Applications: An Empirical Study of Application Quality and Developer Productivity

Abstract:

As inexpensive microcomputers and easy-to-use software have proliferated throughout organizations, increasing numbers of employees are developing applications. The end-user computing (EUC) literature contains many prescriptions for managing this activity, but there has been little direct empirical examination of the effectiveness of end users as application developers. This paper describes a study in which five different applications were developed independently by paired teams of end users and IS students acting as surrogate IS professionals. This permitted comparison of end users and surrogate IS professionals on the quality of the finished applications and on productivity. The quality analysis focused on technical design and implementation factors as measured by defect counting and a subjective quality attribute rating. Productivity was measured by function point analysis and lines-of-code metrics.

The results of the study indicate that the surrogate IS professionals were much more productive and produced higher-quality applications than did the end users. The fact that student surrogates significantly outperformed the end users is particularly interesting since experienced IS professionals might be expected to show even greater differences in productivity and quality. The study should be replicated using IS professionals to confirm the preliminary findings. The results suggest that additional research on the efficacy of end users as application developers is needed.

Key Words and Phrases:

• end-user computing
• programmer productivity
• quality of programming
• user-developed applications

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dana T. Edberg

Dana T. Edberg is a lecturer in computer information systems at the University of Nevada, Reno. She holds a B.S. and M.B.A. from the University of Nevada, Reno, and is currently completing her Ph.D. in IS from Claremont Graduate School. Her prior work experience includes software engineering project management in government and industry as well as consulting and training in IS management and software design processes. Her current research interests include measurement of the software development organization, end-user computing, and software engineering.

Brent J. Bowman

Brent J. Bowman is an Associate Professor of Computer Information Systems and Associate Dean of the College of Business Administration at the University of Nevada, Reno. He has held both technical and managerial positions in the information technology field in government and industry. He has published a variety of articles on information systems, and his current research interests include end-user computing, software engineering, and systems analysis and design methodologies.