Information systems are a multi-disciplinary subject, whose objects of study are information and its functions, information technology and its use in organisational contexts. For nearly three decades, scholars and practitioners have been pursuing effective paradigms, approaches, methods and techniques for developing and engineering information systems. The book is intended to contribute to this direction.

The research work on which the book is based began in 1989 in Twente University, the Netherlands, where I joined a team led by Professor Ronald Stamper. The team has been preoccupied by a series of philosophical and methodological investigations into information systems for a long time. My work at that time, with a focus on information modelling, was just a part of the large programme entitled MEASUR.

The research programme began in 1973, marked by Stamper's book on information. It was first called LEGOL, which aimed to deliver a set of legally oriented techniques for requirements specification. It soon extended into a research effort into Methods for Eliciting, Analysing and Specifying Users' Requirements (hence MEASUR). In the last ten years, the programme has further expanded into a set of methods to deal with all aspects of information systems. The theory of organisational semiotics is a key foundation for the methods and techniques developed within MEASUR. These methods and techniques enable one to understand and articulate the business problem and its context under the study, to capture semantics and intentions of users in requirement models, and also to implement technical information systems that are flexible and adaptable to the organisational change.