Designing Process Guidance Systems

Stefan Morana

Process knowledge is a vital prerequisite for employees to execute organizational processes successfully in the course of their daily work. However, the lack of process knowledge, especially of novice users, and the need for support pose a challenge to employers. Inspired by research on spatial knowledge and navigation, we conceptualize three process knowledge types addressing the needs of employees during their process execution. On the basis of these process knowledge types and decision support and guidance research, we derive three theoretically grounded design principles for process guidance systems to support employees’ process execution. We instantiate the design principles and evaluate the resulting artifacts in a focus group study, a laboratory experiment, and in a field study. The results demonstrate the positive effects of process guidance systems on users’ process knowledge and process execution performance. Our study contributes to research and practice by proposing a new conceptualization of process knowledge and a nascent design theory for process guidance systems that builds on theories of spatial knowledge and navigation, as well as decision support research.

Published at July 12, 2025, 3:52 a.m.

Design Canvas

Justificationary Knowledge

The design is grounded in two research streams: decision support research with the concept guidance, explanations, and decision aids as well as research on spatial and navigation theories.

Problem

Process knowledge is a vital prerequisite for employees to execute organizational processes successfully in the course of their daily work. However, the lack of process knowledge, especially of novice users, and the need for support pose a challenge to employers
Objective

Design an IT-based solution to support employees with the required process knowledge in order to increase their process execution performance and their process knowledge.
Idea

Develop an IT-based artifact that provides the required process knowledge for the current process context, integrated into the current working context of the employee.

Context

The process guidance proposed in this research project focuses on rather structured processed that have some form of specification that can be used to derive process guidance. Furthermore, the proposed process guidance focuses on supporting an individual user at a time, rather than a group of users at the same time.

Scope
Design Process

The research project follows the suggestions by Kuechler and Vaishnavi (2008) and is divided into three consecutive design cycles.

Evaluation

Each design cycle comprises an evaluation episode following the suggestions by Kuechler & Vaishnavi (2008). In the first design cycle, a qualitative focus group workshop was performed. The second design cycle includes a quantitative laboratory experiment. The third design cycle includes a qualitative focus group and interview study as well as a quantitative survey-based field study.

Method
Artifact

For each design cycle, a dedicated process guidance artifact was developed with a varying degree of maturity. The first artifact was a prototype that illustrates the concept and the second artifact included process guidance for the experiment’s process. The third and final artifact was a fully functional prototype used for the case company’s IT ticketing processes.

Result
Design Knowledge

The research project developed comprehensive design knowledge in the form of eleven meta-requirements and three theory-grounded design principles. Moreover, the design decisions based on the design principles in the form of the instantiated artifacts can help researchers and practitioners to develop their own process guidance systems.

  • Iteration 1
  • Awareness of Problem
  • Expert Interviews

    We explored issues related to process knowledge and process execution by conducting a series of expert interviews with open questions. In total eight employees of the case company were interviewed. The expert interviews revealed that the employees experience difficulties in properly executing processes due to a lack of process knowledge. In particular, one of the interviewees requested some “guidance, claiming the system which needs to be used in a particular business process step”.

    Expert Interviews
  • Systematic Literature Review

    The systematic literature review serves to identify existing research on decision support and guidance research addressing the three concepts guidance, explanations, and decision aids. Based on the findings, a taxonomy of guidance design features is derived and research gaps discussed.

    Literature Review
  • Suggestion
  • Synthesis of design principles based on empirical findings

    Derived ten meta-requirements based on existing desicion support and guidance research. The meta-requirements inform three design principles.

  • Development
  • Instantiation of design principles as a prototype

    We instantiated the design in the form of an artifact for the case company’s procurement department that focuses on structured, document-centric business processes specified by the department.

  • Evaluation
  • Qualitative evaluation of the artifact (focus group)

    We performed two focus group workshops with employees of the case company to evaluate the instantiated prototype.

    Focus Group
  • Conclusion
  • Focus group analysis

    The workshops’ positive results show that the proposed and instantiated functionalities described in the DPs have some validity, which indicates the usefulness of the PGS artifact . Moreover, we found the need for a further meta-requirement.

  • Iteration 2
    Meeting Kickoff
  • Awareness of Problem
  • Further reading on spatial and navigational theory
  • Suggestion
  • Adaption of design principles with additional theory
  • Development
  • Instantiation of adapted design principles as updated prototype
  • Evaluation
  • Quantitative evaluation of the artifact (laboratory experiment)
  • Conclusion
  • Experiment analysis and hypotheses supported
  • Iteration 3
    Meeting Kickoff
  • Awareness of Problem
  • Suggestion
  • Adaption of research model
  • Development
  • Implementation of design principles as software artifact
  • Evaluation
  • Quantitative evaluation of the artifact (longitudinal field study)
  • Conclusion
  • Evaluation analysis, hypotheses supported, and nascent design theory
  • Literature Review

    The literature review is conducted following the guidelines by Webster and Watson (2002) and vom Brocke et al. (2009). According the recommendations of vom Brocke et al. (2009), in a first step the taxonomy by Cooper (1988) is used, who categorizes re-views according to six categories. Table 3 1 summarizes the review intention based on Cooper‘s (1988) categories. Having a clear scope, the literature review was started with the conception of the topic and the definition of search terms.

  • Identify and Describe Research Problem

    Guidance design features in information systems are used to help people in decision-making, problem solving, and task execution. Various information systems instantiate guidance design features, which have specifically been researched in the field of decision support systems for decades. However, due to the lack of a common conceptualization, it is difficult to compare the research findings on guidance design features fromdifferent literature streams.

  • Identify Literature Streams

    Three main IS research streams form the foundation of guidance and base on the seminal articles of Silver (1991), Gregor and Benbasat (1999), and Todd and Benbasat (1991):
    - Decisional guidance (Silver, 1991)
    - Explanations (Gregor & Benbasat, 1999)
    - Decision aids (Todd and Benbasat, 1991)

  • Select Databases/Repositories

    The searches were performed in databases being the most important to economics (EBSCSOhost and ProQuest), computer science (ACM Digital Library and IEEE Xplore Digital Library), and information systems (AIS Electronic Library). The databases were selected in order to include the basket of eight and most important conferences in the IS field.

  • Define Search String

    ("guidance" OR "decisional guidance" OR "explanations" OR "decision aids") AND ("decision support systems" OR "DSS" OR "expert systems" OR "intelligent systems" OR "information systems")

  • Perform Literature Analysis
  • Perform Forward/Backward Search
  • Write up Results

    Results of the literature review published in the attached DSS paper.

  • Design Cycle 1
  • Expert Interviews

    We explored issues related to process knowledge and process execution by conducting a series of expert interviews with open questions. In total eight employees of the case company were interviewed. The expert interviews revealed that the employees experience difficulties in properly executing processes due to a lack of process knowledge. In particular, one of the interviewees requested some “guidance, claiming the system which needs to be used in a particular business process step”.

  • Derivation of Design Principles

    Derived ten meta-requirements based on existing desicion support and guidance research. The meta-requirements inform three design principles.

  • Qualitative evaluation of the artifact (focus group)

    We performed two focus group workshops with employees of the case company to evaluate the instantiated prototype.

  • Design Cycle 2
  • Reading on spatial knowledge theories

    Humans can acquire spatial knowledge from various sources, such as maps, navigation experiences, pictures, and descriptions (Richardson et al., 1999). Spatial knowledge can be divided into two different types: procedural and survey knowledge (Thorndyke & Hayes-Roth, 1982). Thorndyke and Hayes-Roth (1982) define survey knowledge as spatial knowledge about an environment’s topographic properties and as the two-dimensional relationships between locations. This type of spatial knowledge is similar to a map because the relationship between two locations on a map can be identified without additional information about the route (Goldin & Thorndyke, 1982). Users can build up survey knowledge in various ways, such as navigating in a certain environment, which is also referred to as a “primary” experience (Ishikawa & Montello, 2006; Presson & Hazelrigg, 1984). Another possibility to gain survey knowledge is studying a map or an image, which is referred to as a “secondary” experience (Goldin & Thorndyke, 1982; Richardson et al., 1999). Users transform the gained survey knowledge into mental images, which can be used as a physical map to navigate inside a particular environment (Thorndyke & Hayes-Roth, 1982). Researchers have found that gaining survey knowledge through active participation is superior to survey knowledge gained by secondary sources (Presson & Hazelrigg, 1984).

  • Conduct Laboratory Experiment
  • Define Key Constructs

    Process knowledge (in general): information about a process, including how it is configured, how it is coordinated, how it is executed, what outputs are desirable, and what impacts it has on the organization (Amaravadi & Lee, 2005).

    Process orientation knowledge: information enabling users to locate themselves within the entire process.

    Process overview knowledge: information about the various process steps and their sequence within the entire process.

    Procedural process knowledge: information on how to execute a specific process step within the entire process.

    Process execution effectiveness: the number of times the user correctly executes a process instance (i.e., the process was executed, and the intended outcome / quality was achieved) (Dennis et al., 1996).

    Process execution efficiency: the ratio between the correctly executed process instances and the time spent to execute the process instances (Dennis et al., 1996).

  • Derive Hypotheses

    H1: Providing process overview information and procedural process information in a process guidance systems leads to users having increased:
    a) process knowledge;
    b) process execution effectiveness;
    c) process execution efficiency,
    when compared with a process guidance system providing no process information.
    ------------
    assessing the effect of the functionality described in DP2:
    H2: Providing process overview information in a process guidance system leads to users having increased:
    a) process knowledge;
    b) process execution effectiveness;
    c) process execution efficiency,
    when compared with a process guidance system providing no process overview information.

    ----------

    H3: Providing procedural process information in a process guidance system leads to users having increased:
    a) process knowledge;
    b) process execution effectiveness;
    c) process execution efficiency,
    when compared with a process guidance system providing no procedural process information.

  • Create Experiment Design
  • Develop/Design Treatments
  • Write up Results
  • Data Collection
  • Design Cycle 3
  • Perform Survey Data Analysis
  • Execute Survey
  • Create Survey
  • Operationalize Dependent Variable(s)
  • Derive Hypotheses
  • Define Dependent Variables
  • Collect Justificatory Knowledge
  • Define Key Constructs
  • Write up Results