User-centric Services Research Articles

Innovative Service Design of Online Agricultural Product Platforms: Improving User Experience and Trust

The rapid growth of online agricultural product platforms has revolutionized traditional agricultural markets, offering consumers more convenient purchasing options and expanding sales channels for farmers. However, challenges such as the lack of product transparency, inadequate trust mechanisms, and varied user needs hinder the platforms' development. This study explores innovative service design strategies to enhance user experience and build trust in online agricultural product platforms, guided by the Double Diamond Model. By identifying critical obstacles and addressing them through digitalization, AI-driven analytics, and ethical farming practices, this research proposes a user-centered service innovation framework. The study emphasizes intelligent interface design, product traceability mechanisms, and interactive consumer feedback systems to foster trust and engagement. Through iterative prototyping, testing, and optimization, this approach aims to create a sustainable and reliable platform ecosystem that meets diverse user needs. The findings provide actionable insights for online agricultural product platforms to improve competitiveness, user satisfaction, and long-term market sustainability.

Real-Time Evaluation of the Improved Eagle Strategy Model in the Internet of Things

With the rapid expansion of cloud computing and the pervasive growth of IoT across industries and educational sectors, the need for efficient remote data management and service orchestration has become paramount. Web services, facilitated by APIs, offer a modular approach to integrating and streamlining complex business processes. However, real-time monitoring and optimal service selection within large-scale, cloud-based repositories remain significant challenges. This study introduces the novel Improved Eagle Strategy (IES) hybrid model, which uniquely integrates bio-inspired optimization with clustering techniques to drastically reduce computation time while ensuring highly accurate service selection tailored to specific user requirements. Through comprehensive NetLogo simulations, the IES model demonstrates superior efficiency in service selection compared to existing methodologies. Additionally, the IES model’s application through a web dashboard system highlights its capability to manage both functional and non-functional service attributes effectively. When deployed on real-time IoT devices, the IES model not only enhances computation speed but also ensures a more responsive and user-centric service environment. This research underscores the transformative potential of the IES model, marking a significant advancement in optimizing cloud computing processes, particularly within the IoT ecosystem.

보호자 중심 운영에 따른 보호자의 사회적 자본이 사회복지서비스 이용에 미치는 부정적 영향에 관한 사례연구: 양천구 입양아 사망사건을 중심으로

This study explores the negative impact of caregivers' social capital on the use of social welfare services through a case study of the child abuse death incident in Yangcheon-gu. By applying social capital theory, the study analyzes how caregivers' intangible capital restricts the rights and choices of vulnerable users, such as children, in the operation of social welfare services. The research methods involved frequency analysis and literature analysis using Textom, revealing the structural issues where children’s choice rights were limited due to caregivers’ social capital during the handling of abuse cases by key actors such as the police, daycare centers, and adoption agencies. The results showed that social capital facilitated a caregiver-centered service operation, leading to situations where children's rights were inadequately protected. Specifically, adoption agencies and the police prioritized their networks and trust with the caregivers over the children's interests, resulting in inadequate protection of the children. In contrast, daycare centers intervened relatively more in line with the children's interests, but were still constrained in their role due to the imbalance of social capital. This study suggests that the imbalance of social capital between caregivers and users in social welfare services can distort service delivery, highlighting the need for institutional interventions and the strengthening of advocacy systems. These measures aim to provide concrete solutions for realizing user-centered service operations in social welfare services in the future.

Enhancing User Satisfaction through Effective People Marketing Strategies in University Libraries

This research article investigates the relationship between people marketing strategies and user satisfaction within university libraries in central Uganda. Given the increasing competition among academic libraries for user engagement and service delivery, understanding how people-oriented marketing approaches can enhance user satisfaction becomes crucial. The objectives of this study are: to analyze the people marketing strategies employed by selected university libraries, assess user satisfaction levels, explore the relationship between marketing strategies and user satisfaction, and determine the influence of these strategies on the overall satisfaction of library users. A mixed-methods approach was used, involving quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews. Findings indicated a positive (0.185-0.509) and significant (P≤0.01) correlation between effective people marketing strategies and higher user satisfaction levels. Staff availability (12.463, P≤0.009), capacity to guide users (3.583, P≤0.000) communication skills (0.605, P≤0.001), effective rapport with users (37.351, P≤0.058), and support in utilization of new technologies (3.283, P≤0.007), among others, were the major determinants of user library satisfaction. The study therefore emphasized the need for library administrations to adopt comprehensive marketing approaches focusing on interpersonal relationships and user-centric services.

A Novel Blockchain-based Responsible Recommendation System for Service Process Creation and Recommendation

Service composition platforms play a crucial role in creating personalized service processes. Challenges, including the risk of tampering with service data during service invocation and the potential single point of failure in centralized service registration centers, hinder the efficient and responsible creation of service processes. This paper presents a novel framework called Context-Aware Responsible Service Process Creation and Recommendation (SPCR-CA), which incorporates blockchain, Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs), and a Skip-Gram model holistically to enhance the security, efficiency, and quality of service process creation and recommendation. Specifically, the blockchain establishes a trusted service provision environment, ensuring transparent and secure transactions between services and mitigating the risk of tampering. The RNN trains responsible service processes, contextualizing service components and producing coherent recommendations of linkage components. The Skip-Gram model trains responsible user-service process records, generating semantic vectors that facilitate the recommendation of similar service processes to users. Experiments using the Programmable-Web dataset demonstrate the superiority of the SPCR-CA framework to existing benchmarks in precision and recall. The proposed framework enhances the reliability, efficiency, and quality of service process creation and recommendation, enabling users to create responsible and tailored service processes. The SPCR-CA framework offers promising potential to provide users with secure and user-centric service creation and recommendation capabilities.

Development of the Empathy in Design Scale: Measuring Employees’ Empathy Toward Users in Service Design

Abstract To design user-centered services, it is essential to build empathy toward users. It is hence strategic to trigger empathy for users among professionals concerned with shaping service user experiences. There is, however, a lack of quantitative tools to measure empathy in design. Through two studies, we report on the development and validation of the Empathy in Design Scale (EMPA-D). The tool aims to measure service employees’ empathy toward users. Grounded in theories from psychology and design, we first generated and tested a pool of items through expert inspection and cognitive interviews. In Study 1, we administered 16 items to 406 full-time service employees from various industries, including employees in customer-facing positions. In Study 2, we iterated on additional items and administered a revised scale to 305 service employees. The selected model consists of 11 items and has a three-factor structure (Emotional interest/Perspective-taking, Personal experience and Self-awareness), which showed an adequate model fit and good internal consistency. Evidence of convergent validity was provided by moderate correlations of the EMPA-D scale with empathy measures in psychology (SITES, Empathy Quotient, Interpersonal Reactivity Index), whereas discriminant validity was demonstrated by low correlations with the narcissism measure Narcissistic Personal Inventory. We outline how this self-reported empathy measure can support organizations in enhancing their services and discuss potential limitations of quantitatively measuring empathy in service teams. Research Highlights We present the development and validation of the Empathy in Design Scale (EMPA-D), a self-report measure of employees’ empathy toward users of a service. We report on two validation studies and document the psychometric properties of the scale. The selected model consists of 11 items and a three-factor structure (Emotional interest/Perspective-taking, Personal experience and Self-awareness). The resulting EMPA-D scale contributes to filling the gap in metrics to assess empathy in the service design context. In industry, measuring employees’ empathy support the selection of appropriate empathic interventions to foster the service user-centeredness.

Creating or destroying value for users? Lessons about activation from qualitative studies in Norway and Denmark

ABSTRACT This article contributes to a growing stream of research on service co-creation and users’ experiences and use of activation services. In public management research, the idea of a public service logic has gained increasing prominence. A key point is that a better understanding of what a service genuinely is, has implications for how to develop more user-centric and efficient services. This article applies a public service logic in a critical interpretive synthesis of qualitative research findings regarding users’ experiences with activation services in Denmark and Norway. It shows that activation services are necessarily co-created, as users contribute resources to co-create services. Only users can transform these services into individual value, helping them in their process towards work. Services made by utilizing users’ resources but not answering to users’ needs may destroy individual value. Some activation services tend to contribute more to individual value creation than other services, but most services can contribute to both value creation and destruction, depending on users’ needs and circumstances. Public services must also create public value. Services users are obliged to participate in co-creating and which give priority to the creation of public value, such as clarifying eligibility for long term benefits often lead to the destruction of individual value. Taking users’ co-creation of service as a starting point in the design of and research on activation services will contribute to provide more user-centric services, increase the priority given to creation of individual over public value and thereby improve the outcome of activation policy.

A Multi-Agent System for Service Provisioning in an Internet-of-Things Smart Space Based on User Preferences.

The integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) is critical to the advancement of ambient intelligence (AmI), as it enables systems to understand contextual information and react accordingly. While many solutions focus on user-centric services that provide enhanced comfort and support, few expand on scenarios in which multiple users are present simultaneously, leaving a significant gap in service provisioning. To address this problem, this paper presents a multi-agent system in which software agents, aware of context, advocate for their users' preferences and negotiate service settings to achieve solutions that satisfy everyone, taking into account users' flexibility. The proposed negotiation algorithm is illustrated through a smart lighting use case, and the results are analyzed in terms of the concrete preferences defined by the user and the selected settings resulting from the negotiation in regard to user flexibility.

End-to-end network slicing for edge computing optimization

User-centric services proliferated by the smart devices is getting more demanding and characteristically diversified. Fall-risk assessment, augmented reality and similar services coexist in a shared heterogeneous setting. To meet the diversified and often conflicting requirements of the services, the physical network is decomposed into virtual slices. In order to address the optimal network slicing problem for various service types with different performance requirements, this study proposes a Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) model. This optimization model aims to satisfy the demands of the services and provide complete isolation among them through virtual resources reservation, including both networking and computation. Additionally, a heuristic implementation NESECS (NEtwork Slicing for Edge Computing Services) is proposed as an efficient solution for the cases where the optimization tools remain inadequate. The performance of the proposed solutions is evaluated with an extensive set of experiments. The obtained results indicate that the proposed optimization model is capable of providing optimal or near optimal solutions for small network instances, and NESECS algorithm can provide good solutions for larger instances by eliminating the time complexity.

User-centered AI-based voice-assistants for safe mobility of older people in urban context

AbstractVoice-assistants are becoming increasingly popular and can be deployed to offers a low-cost tool that can support and potentially reduce falls, injuries, and accidents faced by older people within the age of 65 and older. But, irrespective of the mobility and walkability challenges faced by the aging population, studies that employed Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based voice-assistants to reduce risks faced by older people when they use public transportation and walk in built environment are scarce. This is because the development of AI-based voice-assistants suitable for the mobility domain presents several techno–social challenges. Accordingly, this study aims to identify user-centered service design and functional requirements, techno–social factors, and further design an architectural model for an AI-based voice-assistants that provide personalized recommendation to reduce falls, injuries, and accidents faced by older people. Accordingly, a scoping review of the literature grounded on secondary data from 59 studies was conducted and descriptive analysis of the literature and content-related analysis of the literature was carried out. Findings from this study presents the perceived techno-socio factors that may influences older people use of AI-based voice-assistants. More importantly, this study presents user-centred service design and functional requirements needed to be considered in developing voice-assistants suitable for older people. Implications from this study provides AI techniques for implementing voice-assistants that provide safe mobility, walkability, and wayfinding for older people in urban areas.

Design Thinking and Library Practice: Inspiring Initiatives and User-Centered Services, Programs, and Physical Spaces

Design Thinking and Library Practice: Inspiring Initiatives and User-Centered Services, Programs, and Physical Spaces

Smart Rainwater Harvesting Service Design

Megacities expansion around the globe have significantly increased the demand for resources to the point of depleting available reservoirs and requiring importing resources from nearby locations sometimes implementing major infrastructure projects for guaranteeing access to resources. This is particularly true for one of the largest Megalopolis in the world, Mexico City, that imports 40% of its water supply from neighboring states. Despite of being a city holding important hydric resources, the lack of strategies, technological innovation, user-centered service design, consistent data acquiring, and optimization tools have led to a poor water management that maintains the metropolis with a constant scarcity of the resource. Therefore, the aim of the current paper is to present a conceptual service design for smart rainwater harvesting in urban settlements that provides an alternative source for citizens to reduce the local hydric stress, diminish aquifer overexploitation and increase water well recovery contributing to more sustainable cities.

Profissional Da Informação E Transformação Digital:estudo de caso - uX User Experience Design

The article discusses the impact of digital transformation in the fields of information and librarianship, highlighting the new demands and challenges imposed toprofessionals in the field. It analyzes how the adoption of new digital technologies by information units can generate innovations in user services, through solutions such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, personalization, and data analysis. It presents how the technology should be aligned with the needs of the users. The text also addresses the integration between the principles of User Experience Design and Information Science to develop user-centered services. The skills necessary for the information professional to work in the digital age are presented, such as technological mastery, digital information management, communication, teamwork, and continuous learning. It concludes that, with adequate training in technical, managerial, and behavioral skills, professionals can deal with the challenges of digital transformation in an ethical and strategic way.

Adequacy of LIS Curriculum in Response to Global Trends: A Case Study of Tanzanian Universities

Abstract This study examines the adequacy of the library and information science (LIS) curriculum in responding to fast-changing global trends in the library profession developments. The study utilizes a case study design to investigate the University of Dar es Salaam and Open University of Tanzania. The findings of the study reveal the importance of aligning LIS education curriculum with global trends to ensure that graduates have the requisite skills and knowledge to meet the demands of the ever-evolving field. The study highlights digital literacy, emerging technologies, user-centered services, and diversity, equity, and inclusion as critical areas requiring prioritization in the LIS curriculum. The study recommends the development of technical skills, soft skills, emerging technologies, and cultural competencies with practical training opportunities, real-world case studies, and industry partnerships. The study emphasizes the importance of information security and privacy, data management and analysis, collection development and management, marketing and outreach, digital humanities and scholarship, and accessibility and universal design in LIS education.

Digital Health Equity and Tailored Health Care Service for People With Disability: User-Centered Design and Usability Study.

As digital health services advance, digital health equity has become a significant concern. However, people with disability and older adults still face health management limitations, particularly in the COVID-19 pandemic. An essential area of investigation is proposing a patient-centered design strategy that uses patient-generated health data (PGHD) to facilitate optimal communication with caregivers and health care service providers. This study aims to conceptualize, develop, and validate a digitally integrated health care service platform for people with disability, caregivers, and health care professionals, using Internet of Things devices and PGHD to contribute to improving digital health equity. The methodology consists of 5 stages. First, a collaborative review of the previous app, Daily Healthcare 1.0, was conducted with individuals with disabilities, caregivers, and health care professionals. Secondly, user needs were identified via personas, scenarios, and user interface sketches to shape a user-centered service design. The third stage created an enhanced app that integrated these specifications. In the fourth stage, heuristic evaluations by clinical and app experts paved the way for Daily Healthcare 2.0, now featuring Internet of Things device integration. Conclusively, in the fifth stage, an extensive 2-month usability evaluation was executed with user groups comprising individuals with disabilities using the app and their caregivers. Among the participants, "disability welfare information and related institutional linkage" was the highest priority. Three of the 14 user interface sketches the participants created were related to "providing educational content." The 11 heuristic evaluation experts identified "focusing on a single task" as a crucial issue and advocated redesigning the home menu to simplify it and integrate detailed menus. Subsequently, the app Daily Healthcare 2.0 was developed, incorporating wearable devices for collecting PGHD and connecting individuals with disabilities, caregivers, and health care professionals. After the 2-month usability evaluation with 27 participants, all participants showed an increase in eHealth literacy, particularly those who used the caregiver app. Relatively older users demonstrated improved scores in health IT usability and smartphone self-efficacy. All users' satisfaction and willingness to recommend increased, although their willingness to pay decreased. In this study, we underscore the significance of incorporating the distinct needs of individuals with disabilities, caregivers, and health care professionals from the design phase of a digital health care service, highlighting its potential to advance digital health equity. Our findings also elucidate the potential benefits of fostering partnerships between health consumers and providers, thereby attenuating the vulnerability of marginalized groups, even amid crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Emphasizing this imperative, we advocate for sustained endeavors to bolster the digital literacy of individuals with disabilities and champion collaborative cocreation, aiming to uphold the collective ethos of health and digital health equity.

Deep Learning Algorithms for Personalized Services and Enhanced User Experience in Libraries

The integration of deep learning (DL) algorithms in library settings engenders a multitude of challenges and complexities, encompassing unintended ramifications, ethical quandaries, a dearth of specialized literature elucidating DL in library contexts, the intricacies of dataset selection and human intervention, and the inherent limitations when juxtaposed with the remarkable cognitive capabilities of the human brain. To surmount these hurdles and attain a profound comprehension of DL in library settings, a rigorous and comprehensive systematic literature review (SLR) becomes imperative. This study investigates the application of DL algorithms in examining user-seeking behaviour to provide personalized services and enhance user experience in libraries. Through a comprehensive literature review, the study aims to uncover the benefits, challenges, and implications of integrating DL algorithms for user behaviour analysis and personalized services in library environments. The investigation encompasses a systematic literature review, employing a meticulous search and screening process utilizing the Scopus database. DL algorithms enable tailored recommendations, resource suggestions, and personalized search outcomes, improving information retrieval and user-centric services. Ethical considerations and ongoing research are emphasized to address challenges and maximize the potential of DL algorithms in libraries. The integration of DL algorithms in libraries yields substantial benefits, including improved information retrieval capabilities, augmented resource recommendation systems, and the delivery of user-centric services. The paper offers valuable insights to researchers, practitioners, and stakeholders operating within this field.

Analysis of the Success of Implementing Digital Service Delivery in the Indonesian Public Sector: A Case Study on the Use of Online Public Service Applications

Digital service delivery in the public sector symbolizes a sea change in governance, with governments leveraging digital technology to improve service efficiency, transparency, and citizen involvement. This article looks at the key advantages of digital service delivery, such as increased efficiency, improved access and convenience, cost savings, user-centric services, data-driven decision-making, transparency, enhanced citizen engagement, innovative service delivery, lower environmental impact, and crisis response capabilities. It does, however, highlight some of the problems, such as bridging the digital gap and guaranteeing data security and privacy. As governments throughout the world embrace digital transformation, the necessity to offer services that meet citizens' changing expectations becomes clear. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of digital service delivery in modern governance, providing timely and accountable government services that match the needs of the digital era.

사용자 중심의 감성안전디자인 개발 및 적용 사례 연구

While the number of industrial fatalities has been declining in recent years, companies' safety and health management systems are still inadequate, and more than half of industrial accidents are caused by failure to follow basic safety rules. It is important to raise safety awareness among workers and create a safety culture in the workplace. Especially in large-scale, complex environments with many inherent risks, such as power plants, it is necessary to develop solutions specific to power plant sites, such as an emotional design approach that improves worker awareness of safety rules and drives user behavior. To this end, we used user-centered service design techniques to diagnose potential risk factors for each process in the power plant, identify problems from the worker's perspective, and conduct idea competitions and co-creation workshops to develop solutions. The final nine solutions were designed and demonstrated, and received positive evaluations through satisfaction and effectiveness analysis. Through this, it was confirmed that in power plants where risk factors are scattered in various places, an approach that enhances the effectiveness of problem discovery through worker participation and co-development of solutions is necessary. In the future, if safety design considering user characteristics is further developed to minimize potential safety factors and risks by considering the user's lifecycle, it will contribute to improving the safety achievement of power plants.

Library services marketing: An overview of strategies and outcomes

In an increasingly digital age, libraries have been compelled to adapt and innovate in order to remain relevant and effectively serve their communities. Library marketing has emerged as a critical discipline to promote library services, engage users, and communicate the library's value in a rapidly changing landscape. This article provides an overview of library marketing strategies, explores various methodologies employed in this field, examines the results achieved through these efforts, and concludes with key takeaways for effective library marketing. To gather insights on library marketing, a comprehensive review of the literature was conducted. Key references, including "Digital Marketing Practices in Academic Libraries" by Chauhan and Gupta, "Marketing and Advocacy for Academic Libraries" by Fabry and Hernon, and "Libraries as Information Ecosystems" by Johnson, were analyzed. The methodologies employed in these studies encompassed systematic literature reviews, case studies, and surveys, providing a well-rounded perspective on library marketing practices. The examination of library marketing strategies revealed a diverse range of approaches utilized by libraries worldwide. These include leveraging digital platforms and social media, developing targeted outreach campaigns, fostering community partnerships, implementing user-centric services, and employing data analytics for informed decision-making. These efforts have yielded significant outcomes, such as increased user engagement, expanded patron base, heightened visibility, and improved perceptions of libraries as vibrant community spaces. Library marketing has become an indispensable discipline for libraries to thrive in the digital age. The reviewed literature highlights the importance of adopting a strategic and user-focused approach to marketing, tailoring services to meet the evolving needs of patrons, and effectively communicating the library's value proposition. By embracing innovative marketing strategies, libraries can enhance their impact, attract new users, and foster meaningful connections with their communities. This article concludes with a call to further explore and refine library marketing practices to ensure libraries remain vital and valued institutions in the digital era.

정신장애인 대상 지역사회통합돌봄의 실행 및 성과에 대한 실무자의 인식 연구

Through focus group interviews, this study explores perceptions of practitioners participating in the community care for people with mental illnesses and analyzes the operation process and performance of the community care. The main contents are ① evaluation of the overall circumstances that have changed while promoting the community care project, ② public participation and its role in the service delivery process, ③ collaboration with various service delivery entities, ④ expansion of regional social network for providing multi-field services, and ⑤ changes in awareness of people with mental disabilities and mental health through the community care. In terms of changes in users, the major keywords include expansion of community services and user-centered service provision method. In regards to changes in the service delivery system, the major keywords are ① securing access to regional services, ② changes in service provision methods based on linkage and cooperation, and ③ general changes in community service provision and community perceptions of care. The results of the analysis serve as evidence in evaluating the changes in the service users and the service delivery system, and identifying the performance and limitations of the community care project for people with mental illnesses. This study provides basic knowledge necessary to develop a community-centered mental health service system and service delivery method in the future. This study will contribute to the establishment and expansion of a community-centered mental health service model that supports the mentally disabled to return to the community and normalized life.