Design Science Research Process: A Model for Producing and Presenting Information Systems Research
This work addresses a methodological gap for information systems researchers, potentially aiding the acceptance of design science research in the discipline, though it is incremental as it builds on prior literature.
The authors tackled the lack of a standardized process for design science research in information systems by designing and demonstrating a six-step model, which they validated through two case studies and found to effectively meet their objectives.
The authors design and demonstrate a process for carrying out design science (DS) research in information systems and demonstrate use of the process to conduct research in two case studies. Several IS researchers have pioneered the acceptance of DS research in IS, but in the last 15 years little DS research has been done within the discipline. The lack of a generally accepted process for DS research in IS may have contributed to this problem. We sought to design a design science research process (DSRP) model that would meet three objectives: it would be consistent with prior literature, it would provide a nominal process model for doing DS research, and it would provide a mental model for presenting and appreciating DS research in IS. The process includes six steps: problem identification and motivation, objectives for a solution, design and development, evaluation, and communication. We demonstrated the process by using it in this study and by presenting two case studies, one in IS planning to develop application ideas for mobile financial services and another in requirements engineering to specify feature requirements for a self service advertising design and sales system intended for wide audience end users. The process effectively satisfies the three objectives and has the potential to help aid the acceptance of DS research in the IS discipline.