A Balanced Approach to Capturing User Requirements in Business- to- Consumer Web Information Systems

The development of business-to-consumer web information systems pose special challenges in the requirements analysis phase. It is difficult to capture user requirements given that users are relatively autonomous and anonymous and there are no major incentives for users to become involved in the development of a web information system. The researchers reviewed traditional requirement elicitation techniques, marketing research techniques and web usage analysis techniques. Current practice was assessed and the findings suggest that a balanced approach to user requirements capture will result in more complete and user centred requirements. This approach should lead to more effective business-to consumer web information systems.