Usability of Document Management Systems Considering Users' Level of Experience: A Survey

Through the use of Document Management Systems (DMS) companies can enhance the automation of processes within documents’ registration, classification, processing, archiving and distribution. However, the usability aspect in current selection processes of DMS is inadequately represented. The reason for this neglect is the fact that although functional criteria can be easily formulated for the evaluation and selection of DMS, it is very difficult to specify criteria concerning usability. Objective criteria need to be developed, which can be used a priori for the evaluation and selection of DMS. The criteria have to be developed in a way that they (referring to usability) are applicable to non-specialist users in SMEs. In order to develop these criteria, the existing usability weaknesses of DMS have to be identified as well as the users’ skills, tasks and requirements. In this paper results of a survey are presented.