User needs in e-government: Conducting policy analysis with models-on-the-Web

Abstract

Design conventions are emerging in e-government models-on-the-Web but they are not based on evidence of analysts' actual what-if analyses for purposes like policymaking. From field studies, we developed representations of policy analysts' actual work and compared them to the assumed goals and tasks built into existing online models, inferred through goal-based requirements methods. We found a large gap exists and argue that current online models are impoverished because they ignore expertise users bring to bear on their work.