Wizard-based process modeling for business users
Jean-Philippe Lombardi, Jürgen Vogel · 2010
Modeling the business processes of an organization for the purpose of documentation, optimization, or execution is a vital application in many domains. However, a general issue with existing process modeling (PM) tools is a lack of modeling methodologies for non-IT savvy business users (BUs). Instead, PM is usually performed by specially trained experts that then need to acquire the specific process knowledge from the BUs for modeling, resulting in costly and error-prone PM. Instead, we propose to allow BUs to perform modeling tasks directly by an appropriate user-friendly PM approach. We present our research on End User Development (EUD) for PM aimed at improving the ability of BUs to effectively modify process models according to their individual needs. Our EUD technique is based on a step-by-step instruction design (or wizard) pattern, which has been judged suitable for the considered users. The approach specifically considers how the knowledge of IT experts can be integrated in the development of a tool for supporting PM as these experts know how PM activities are performed and what information is required to support BUs in performing those activities. We have developed a wizard prototype for PM and present first evaluation results.