Användbar användarmedverkan : Är användarmedverkan positivt för systemutvecklingsprocessen?

Computer use at work has risen considerably over the past fifteen years and is currently a relatively common phenomenon when 76 percent of women and 72 percent of men using the computer in their daily work (SCB Arbetsmiljörapport 2009).According to Gulliksen and Göransson (2009), Sweden is one of the countries which are more advanced in the procurement of computer systems at work. He means that Sweden has unique opportunities and conditions for user participation in the development of computer systems, when the user has the right to influence their working environment through a law in the Work Environment Act. The paper examines the importance of user involvement in system development and the Swedish company's approach and experience of user involvement. To highlight and explore the importance of user involvement, there has been a case study in which users have been representative of the development process. The case study has been conducted on a case company where the system IST analys was in need of a new interface. The development process has been as such that the developers have worked out their requirements before users have been interviewed and had to give their requirements. This is to compare the requirements of developers and users and whether users gave useful requirements.To investigate the Swedish company's approach to user participation has a questionnaire sent out and it has also been a discussion with two experienced system developers. The conclusion has been that it is advantageous to user participation in systems development but that it is important to have a controlled process that allows users to not steer too much