Business Software Specifications for Consmers: Toward a Standard Format

Abstract

Commercialized business application software packages have been widely used to implement business information systems. In order to determine whether a software package meets the system needs, consumers must check the software specifications against the target system requirements. Since the commercial software industry does not have standard format of software specifications for consumers, free-formatted descriptions of application software and ad hoc demos are commonly used in marketing software products, but are often too ambiguous for consumers to uncover the implemented capacity. This chapter proposes a model of commercialized business software specifications for consumers. It suggests that software packages need to provide specifications for consumers in four aspects: business operations, user-computer interfaces, user-perceived inputs and outputs, and business rules. Using an example, the chapter demonstrates the implementation of the model.