Work practices of system administrators: Implications for tool design

Abstract

System administrators are specialized workers and computer users. As skilled workers in complex and high-risk environments, intuition tells us this unique user group may have requirements of the systems and software they use that differ from the requirements of regular computer users. An examination of system administrator work practices sheds light on the system attributes and characteristics they need to do their jobs. Through shadowing, interviews, and a review of previous system administrator studies, we present information and system quality attributes that appear to be important to system administrators. Following a discussion of these attributes, we present a model of user satisfaction that provides actionable guidance and an integration of the attributes. We close with a discussion of the research findings and a call for future research in this area. Copyright 2008 ACM.