How Well Does the System Under Development Work?

Abstract

A third and final group of methods comprises the empirical techniques. These represent the most objective approach, in that the experimenter or investigator has more control over the variables and influences that may affect the outcome of the method. However, a price for this amount of control is paid in time, effort and resources, as empirical methods often incur substantial costs in their setting up, data collection and analysis. A further outcome of having this tight control concerns the ecological validity of the findings. Since the experimental study is being tightly controlled, it is questionable to what extent outcomes can be equated with the natural setting. This problem, of Course, is not only specific to systems design, but applies to all experimental work conducted in a laboratory setting.