Intentions and perceptions : the emerging gaps between web system designers and users

In recent years, organisations have been increasingly developing web systems as portals through which B2C or B2B eCommerce is conducted. Many such systems suffer from inadequacy in function, form and quality. While such deficiencies are quite commonly encountered in traditional software systems, in the case of web systems, the problems are magnified by the emerging gaps in designers' intentions and the expectation of a global, and frequently grossly misunderstood, user. In this paper we therefore present an approach to investigating the gaps in perceptions between web developer’s intentions and end-users expectations and the subsequent use of web system features. Furthermore, we empirically investigated B2C web systems and determined several useful approaches to practical evaluation of the degree of cohesion between designer and user views of the system.