Traditionally, most information systems were used at work. These systems offered means and tools for people that enabled them to perform their work more effectively, easily, or with higher quality outcome. One of the most important criteria of evaluation of such systems is derived from the contribution of the system to the work objectives of its users. Such evaluation can be started by embedding the IS actions and operations as inherent parts in the users' work processes. This means that the ultimate criteria of the system come from the outside of the system itself. It is interesting that the absence of quality is easier to observe than its presence. Today, many users spend their time with surfing in the Internet, playing games, or attending at social media. Electronic services give one more use situation where this kind of traditional goal-oriented evaluation no longer seems to be sufficient. In all of these (and many other) use situations the objectives are not necessarily clearly or explicitly defined and therefore it is difficult to evaluate, to what extent the objectives have been fulfilled. Such activities are said to be weakly purposeful. The added value created cannot be observed in the external object of the work, the change is often likely to take place inside the actor him/herself, for example as a use experience or improvement of the competence through learning. This paper addresses the problem characterised above that goes deep to the core problems of evaluation. First the generic concept of purposeful activity will be discussed. Work lends itself to be analysed in terms of three modalities of work: individual work, collective work and services. Then the electronic services and IT-services are analysed in terms of this generic concept, paying special attention to self-services. Finally, the main problem of evaluation of IT-artefacts used for weakly purposeful activities is discussed and some guidelines for evaluation are derived. The contribution of the paper is in its conceptual analysis, and it is only indirectly based on own empirical work and material.
