User-centered arrangement of public services

Abstract

This article reports on the issue of arrangement of public services. We argue that public services offered together in one building are often combined without consideration of citizens’ needs. It is not unusual for services to be arranged only according to organizational charts of public administration bodies or space availability. Thus we postulate a shift of perspective from administration-centered to user-centered approach that should be applied in the public administration in general and in public services in particular. To this end we propose a method for decision support on user-centered arrangements of public services. The method is a planning and evaluation tool based on feature modelling. It makes it possible to describe services from the user perspective and compare them in terms of their advantageous arrangement in a facility building. The method has been tested on a real case study and the results are presented and discussed.