End user

Nurses as information systems end users

In product development, an end user (sometimes end-user)[a] is a person who ultimately uses or is intended to ultimately use a product.[1][2][3] The end user stands in contrast to users who support or maintain the product,[4] such as sysops, system administrators, database administrators,[5] information technology (IT) experts, software professionals, and computer technicians. End users typically do not possess the technical understanding or skill of the product designers,[6] a fact easily overlooked and forgotten by designers: leading to features creating low customer satisfaction.[2] In information technology, end users are not customers in the usual sense—they are typically employees of the customer.[7] For example, if a large retail corporation buys a software package for its employees to use, even though the large retail corporation was the customer that purchased the software, the end users are the employees of the company, who will use the software at work.


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  1. ^ Dictionary of Computer and Internet Terms. Barron's Business Guides (8 ed.). Hauppauge, New York: Barron's Educational Series. 2003. p. 171. ISBN 978-0764121661. OCLC 50480181. the person ultimately intended to use a product
  2. ^ a b Howe, Denis (1997-03-29). "FOLDOC entry for "end-user"". foldoc.org. London. Retrieved 2015-06-28. The person who uses a computer application, as opposed to those who developed or it.
  3. ^ Legal Information Institute. "U.S. Code § 8541 - Definitions". www.law.cornell.edu. Ithaca, New York: Cornell Law School. Retrieved 2015-06-28. The term "end-user", with respect to a good, service, or technology, means the person that receives and ultimately uses the good, service, or technology.
  4. ^ FIPS Task Group on Database Management System Standards (1979). Recommendations for Database Management System Standards. Washington, D.C.: National Bureau of Standards. p. 58. OCLC 6862471. The end users are persons who perform the application functions. End users include "parametric" and generalized function users, but they are not system support personnel.
  5. ^ Shepherd, John C. (1990). Database Management: Theory and Application. Homewood, Illinois: Irwin Professional Publishing. p. 20. ISBN 978-0256078299. OCLC 20491157.
  6. ^ O'Neil, Patrick (1994). Database Principles Programming Performance. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. pp. 4–5. ISBN 978-1558602199. OCLC 30777731. One of the most important features of a DBMS is that relatively inexperienced users, called end users, are empowered to retrieve information from the database. The user poses a query at the terminal keyboard, requesting the database system to display the answer on a terminal screen or on a printed sheet.
  7. ^ Chrissis, Mary Beth; Konrad, Mike; Shrum, Sandy (2011). CMMI for Development: Guidelines for Process Integration and Product Improvement. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Addison-Wesley. p. 581. ISBN 9780321711502. OCLC 884168009. A party that ultimately uses a delivered product or that receives the benefit of a delivered service. (See also "customer".) End users may or may not also be customers (who can establish and accept agreements or authorize payments).

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