The User-centric Principle

Services and processes will be designed from the perspective of the service user.

This principle recognises the importance of the user, so that services and processes are effective and efficient for both the user and the system. Further, any existing user rights and privileges will be retained. There is some linkage between this principle and the national identity part of the Sovereignty principle.

Rationale

• The Development Goals have given prominence to designing government services from the ‘outside in’ view, that is, from the perspective of the service user. ⁱ
• People can find all the information they require on a particular topic, irrespective of whether the services are delivered by different agencies.ⁱⁱ
• New Zealanders are able to achieve the results they need, without searching across many agencies.ⁱⁱⁱ
• The Drivers Survey has identified that a key driver for satisfaction as “Your individual circumstances were taken into account”.

Implications

• New Zealanders accessing services want to be able to do so regardless of existing institutional and role boundaries. In future, the public is likely to be even less tolerant of having to contact a number of different agencies to get assistance with what are often aspects of the same need. A challenge for the system as a whole is to link together access to information, retention of information, and provision of services across agencies, in such a way as to maximise timeliness and benefit to the consumer or citizen.
• In the future, the government will:
  • develop standards to ensure interoperability and infrastructure (such as authentication and name and address verification) that allow for further technological development, and can support long-term and complex interactions with businesses and the public
  • deliver complete online services to clients for complex transactions handled by several agencies (such as student loans, business services, and compliance functions).

Footnotes

[i. Development Goals for the State Services, SSC 2007]

[ii. The Digital Strategy: Creating Our Digital Future, 2005]

[iii. One of the tests of Goal 3: Networked State Services, Achieving the Development Goals, http://ssc.govt.nz/SDG-report06, 2007 Oct 5]