Evaluation of Design Artifacts – more than prototypes and case studies

Evaluation of design artefacts is of crucial importance in design science research (DSR). A plethora of evaluation approaches and methods can be found in literature; nevertheless, little work has been done so far to investigate the relation between the evaluation strategies, methods and techniques in DSR evaluations. Prototype implementations, together with case studies seem to be dominant and the technique of choice to evaluate, often complex artefacts. This paper goes beyond the common approach in DSR, and presents a multi-media and web-based DSR evaluation approach. We present the definition of evaluation criteria, the selection of evaluation methods and the findings and experiences gained. The results of this paper can support other design science research approaches concerned with the evaluation of concepts or process models.