Quality Evaluation Models - High Level Models and Methodologies for Information Systems - page 87

Chapter 6
Quality Evaluation Models

6.1 Introduction

The 1970s were characterized by a rising demand for technology, and particularly
information technology (IT), which started to present a progressively bigger impact
on the management and development of organizations and businesses. This increase
in demand led to a growing number of problems, particularly when it came to
deciding the appropriate information systems (IS) to adopt. The focus then lied on
usage and user acceptance: How to predict that the system would be successfully
adopted by users? How to make sure it had the appropriate characteristics that users
in that organization demanded? It thus became necessary to invest in methods that
could help to predict the use of a system to potentiate its success. Researchers
started to experiment in this

field, which was originating much interest, due to its
fundamental importance in the successful adoption of systems inside organizations
(Chuttur 2009 ).
Quality is vital to an interface

is success. This is even truer in a competitive
milieu where only the systems with high quality prevail (Tian 2004 ). Hence, quality
is an essential requirement for the survival of a system. In order to ensure a system

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s
quality, a multitude of quality evaluation models were developed by researchers, to
help determine the system

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s prospective quality.
The decision of which evaluation models to use must be based on a pertinent and
in-depth knowledge of what measures and models are available for system
assessment. It is paramount to know their main characteristics prior to their
application to a project. The application of these models assists developers in the
process of creating systems, so that they can be certain that the system has the
necessary quality to be successful and effective. Therefore, the application of an
evaluation model has a great impact on the entire development process, allowing for
the prediction of key factors of success as well as possible obstacles and how to
overcome them. Indeed, the features that these models present include, in many

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