Stakeholders' Influence on the Importance of Users' and Clients' Information and Constraints during Website Design

Abstract

The present study aims at determining the role of the stakeholder (via a user vs a client spokesperson) on the importance allocated to information and constraints considered by novice and professional web designers. Analysis showed all designers focused mainly on clients' constraints and information even when they dealt with a user spokesperson: they considered clients' constraints as more important than users' constraints. These results are new with regard to those previously obtained in web design, which showed designers considered prescribed constraints (regardless of the stakeholder to which they are related) as unavaoidable, and the vast majority of others as avoidable if required. Research is required to help web designers to ponder users' and clients' constraints and to assess whether the same patterns of results occur in other design domains.

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