As we discuss the following questions, let's ask ourselves:

What kinds of obstacles exist in the workplace that make being user-centered difficult? And: How can these obstacles be overcome?

1 - What are the main differences between a systems-centered and a user-centered approach to information services?

The user-centered approach:
 

• Views information not as a physical object (information-as-thing) but as behavioral process, or the ability to make non-random selections from some set of alternatives or, perhaps, as path finding.

• Views communication not the transfer of any "thing," but as behavioral coordination.

• Views meaning as indeterminate and subjective, actively created by the reader in interaction or dialogue with the book, the CDROM, or any other form of information.

• Views the information professional as an INTER-MEDIA-RY -- someone who analyzes customers' needs in a broad sense -- the kinds of problem-solving they are doing, their goals, the social and organizational matrix of their activities, their knowledge states, their preferences for information search strategies and formats, etc.

• Puts knowledge of customers to use not to stockpile materials and "dish them out" to passive clients, but to provide a customized gateway to widely distributed resources -- both people and "things" -- which can help the customer make non-random decisions and find the paths toward desired goals.

5 - What is the best way to define information if you want to be a user-centered information professional?
 

• Information must be viewed not as some thing but as decision-making potentials of the user as he or she interacts with documents, images, etc.

• If information is not "inside" the document or image but rather in the ways the user reacts to it, then the only way to ascertain if the document or image provides the information needed is to understand if, by interacting with it, the user can take the decisions that are necessary to satisfy his or her needs and achieve his or her goals.

• Information professionals must constantly study the kinds of decision-making users face in order to create information resources for them.

• Information professionals must follow up on the delivery of information to evaluate the impact of these resources on the user's ability to function in the world.

4 - What is the marketing principle and how does it apply to the provision of information?
 

• First understand the needs and wants of people and only then create a product to fill that need or want.

• Products will fail unless they satisfy needs and wants.

• Most non-profit organizations now share this principle with for-profit organizations.

• Information has no value unless it meets some human needs.

• Information services must be user-driven rather than driven by the interests and needs of information professionals or by technology.

• Marketing research and practices must be considered integral parts of every information profession.

2 - What are the 9 user-centered principles mentioned by Nahl?
 

(1) Counseling interventions--Information professionals can operate more effectively as information counselors than simply as information providers.

(2) Role-Taking--Information professionals can gain a more developed consciousness of user-centeredness by role-taking, or putting themselves in the place of users.

(3) Discourse Management Skills -- Information professionals can be more serviceable by acquiring discourse management skills such as interviewing, negotiating, counseling, reformulating, and the like.

(4) Follow-up Services -- Information professionals are user-centered when they follow-up on user activities in an attempt to establish closure.

(5) Affective Contact -- Information professionals and users must be in affective contact.

(6) Incongruence or Uncertainty -- Information professionals can gain a deeper understanding of searchers when they perceive them as being in a state of incongruence or uncertainty, needing to succeed while lacking sufficient knowledge.

(7) State of Congruence with Users -- Information professionals are in a state of congruency in relation to searchers when they accept searchers' weaknesses and ineptitudes, and at the same time, desire to help searchers acquire positive self-regard.

(8) Empathic Understanding of Users -- Information professionals can acquire an empathic understanding of searchers' internal frame of reference.

(9) Lifelong Novicehood -- The greening of the information world will have arrived when information professionals fully acknowledge the primary reality of the information environment, i.e., novices will always be with us.

3 - What is a Customer Service Philosophy?

Customer Service Philosophy is a doctrine for professional service that puts customers first and insists on the highest standards for serving them. Among its tenets are:
 

1. People come first.

2. We give accurate and reliable information.

3. We are serious about our high level of service.

4. We cannot afford to give one wrong answer.

5. We are accessible and easy to approach.

6. We are doers - we work hard.

7. We are often pleased but never satisfied.

8. We want our staff to be happy working for us.

9. Service is a state of mind. People must care and have a desire to do it right and to do it now.

10. The client is always right.

11. Everyone must be thinking about how to do his/her job better and more effectively.

12. Enthusiasm and faith are necessary to remove barriers and increase productivity and decrease costs. (St. Clair 1993)