Tangible and Screen-Based Interfaces for End-User Workflow Modeling

Bridging the gap between business needs and IT solutions is a major challenge in service-oriented computing. Recent research has emphasized the importance of including end users in the development of service-based applications. This article contributes to this problem by taking on a human-centered software engineering perspective. Based on an analysis of two different approaches--tangible and screen-based versions of tools--it discusses how end users can participate in the development of technical workflow models based on their perception of business processes. The evaluation results contribute to a better understanding of the needs and problems of end users and give an idea of future challenges for the design of tools that aim to support end user development in the domain of service-oriented computing.