In this paper, the results of a front-page genre analysis of 290 Swedish municipality Web sites are presented, and the appropriateness of the identified design solutions are discussed. Seven municipality Web site genres are identified: notice-board, newspaper, brochure, promotion, commercial, portal, and filter. We discuss how the municipality genres are related to each other, and to other genres, as mix-genres or subgenres. We conclude that the genres differ widely in terms of form, dominating content, action possibilities, purposes, and user groups and roles. This paper provides design examples of what qualities the different genres might bring, and thereby, gives an opportunity for designers and procurers to learn from previous designs. The paper contributes both by providing an analysis of a genre central to society, and by showing how a genre analysis reveals implicit values regarding the user and the task, mediated in the genres of municipality Web sites.

This paper discusses how research-based knowledge in the form of an information systems development method (ISDM) is used in practice. The paper outlines a theoretical model for analyzng the uses of these methods as well as research results in general. The data are mainly based on research on a consultant's use of a specific ISDM The use of ISDMs is discussed in the terms of a number of functions, and the usefulness of these functions is illustrated by empirical data.