End User Perceptions of the Benefits and Risks of End User Web Development - End User Computing Challenges and Technologies: Emerging Tools and Applications - page 133

satisfying experience. End users perceived the
experience as one of learning and self-improve-
ment rather than one that satisfies and/or results
in applications that improve user satisfaction.
The user satisfaction resulting from spreadsheet
development was not significantly different from
that resulting from Web development, suggesting
that spreadsheet development is also not yet a
straightforward and satisfying experience.
The tenth and eleventh ranked benefits of Web
page development were improved productivity and
improved decision making effectiveness. Thus,
Web page development was not perceived as a
particularly important source of productivity or
decision making effectiveness. Web page develop-
ment leads to information dissemination for the
developer, but the participants in this study did
not see this as improving their own productivity or
decision making effectiveness, nor that accessing
information provided from Web pages developed
by other end users would play an important role
in improving their own productivity. This raises
questions about the purposes of user developed
Web pages. Future research should explore more
closely the reasons for which Web pages are devel-
oped by end users. Spreadsheet development was
considered to be a significantly more important
source of productivity benefits (t(55) = 4.97, p <
0.001) and of benefits resulting from improved
decision making (t(55) = 6.46, p < 0.001).
The lowest ranked potential benefit for both
Web development and spreadsheet development
was improved relationships with information
technology staff. The low ranking reinforces the
idea that end-user Web development is an activ-
ity that is removed from organizational system
development. End users do not perceive it as
supporting organizational development. The low
ranking may possibly reflect the introduction of
additional tensions in relationships with informa-
tion technology staff, brought about by the risks
of end-user development.
No significant differences were found in the
importance ratings of any benefits between those

who had and those who had not previously devel-
oped Web pages.

risks of end user web page
development and spreadsheet
development

Table 7 presents the average perceived importance
of each potential risk for both Web development
and spreadsheet development. The ratings of risks
are ranked by perceived importance for Web
page development. The average importance of
each potential risk was compared between Web
development and spreadsheet development using
paired t-tests.
All potential risks of Web development were
rated fairly highly with averages above the mid-
point of the scale, which implies a good aware-
ness of the problems that can plague end-user
development. Unreliable systems were perceived
as being the most important risk, with lack of data
security ranked closely behind. The potential for
development of unreliable and insecure systems
has long been recognised as one of the major
problems with end-user development (Benson,
1983; Brancheau & Brown, 1993). Despite this
recognition, organizations have done little to
protect against it (Panko & Halverson, 1996). The
high ranking of this risk with respect to end-user
Web development reflects the increased level of
importance of the problem due to the global acces-
sibility of Web-based systems. The potential for
damage to the reputation of an organization has
increased as applications have become accessible
by vast numbers of people from all over the world
(Nelson & Todd, 1999). Unreliable systems were
perceived to be a significantly less important risk
for spreadsheet development (t(53) = -3.60, p =
0.001) and lack of data security was also rated as
a less important risk for spreadsheet development
(t(53) = -1.95, p = 0.057). This suggests that end-
user developers are very aware of the increases
in risk associated with Web development.