User Developed Applications: Can End Users Assess Quality?

Abstract

Organizations rely heavily on applications developed by end users yet lack of experience and training may compromise the ability of end users to make objective judgments about the quality of their applications. This study investigated the ability of end users to assess the quality of applications they develop. The results confirm that there are differences between the system quality assessments of end user developers and independent expert assessors. In particular, the results of this study suggest that end users with little experience may erroneously consider the applications they develop to be of high quality. Some implications of these results are discussed.