Method-ism in practice : investigating the relationship between method and understanding in web page design

This paper develops earlier theoretical work that raised doubts about the common perception that the properuse of information systems development methods is necessary and sufficient for obtaining a proper understand-ing of a problem domain. It provides a summary of this existing theoretical material before presenting newqualitative, empirical results, taken from the developers of successful web sites, which support the notion thatmethods are not being used in the way their developers intend them, but rather that pre-understanding is anecessary requirement for successful method use.