Productive development of World Wide Web sites intended for international use

Abstract

This article focuses on productive development of World Wide Web sites intended for international use (e.g., global e-commerce, e-government and e-education sites), versus simple sites developed for localized use (e.g., personal or regional-content sites). The productive development of sites in this category is currently very difficult due to numerous complicating factors. One impacting factor is that the complexity of the e-business environment continues to increase—economically, legally, politically, and socially. Another impacting factor is that a large-scale, single-language Web development project increases exponentially in complexity when implemented globally into multiple languages and cultures. Additionally, the increasing amount of environmental volatility present during information systems development has a detrimental impact on productivity, and the time available to react to organizational instability during project development is decreasing. Differing views among system developers concerning the best approach to use add to the state of confusion. This article evaluates current system-development methodological theory, and provides realistic suggestions acquired through practitioner experience; the purpose is to combine a solid infrastructure derived from current methodological theory with practitioner experience to accomplish the productive development of World Wide Web sites intended for international use.