© Rinton Press IMPACTS OF WEB SYSTEMS ON THEIR DOMAIN

In web systems development, the business environment and processes not only drive the identification of system needs, but this environment and processes are also in turn fundamentally changed by the introduction or evolution of the system. This means that a web system during development will be highly volatile with a complex set of inter-dependencies with the various domain characteristics. We report on a detailed analysis of the literature related to these dependencies, and in particular the impacts that a Web system has on its environment. We also present a framework that encapsulates the dimensions of impact on both the internal and external business environment. From this analysis we show how different facets of the domain of a system are impacted in different ways. As the scale and immediacy of these impacts increase we need to become more predictive of these impacts in taking them into account during the development. Our analysis will provide organisations with the basis for moving towards this increased level of predictiveness. This analysis will also provide the organisations with a framework for developing strategies for joint development of system and business processes. Key words: web systems; domain; impact; characteristics; organisation; business environment; internet; intranet; extrane