For computer applications, there is the user, the purchaser, the manager of the user, and those impacted by the use of the system. If you aren't producing satisfaction for these customers, you aren't producing value. Clarify what will produce value. However, customers are often caught in a local view of their own conditions for satisfaction. When this questioning is linked all the way to the external customers in businesses, we begin to see what will produce value for our customers.
Information is valuable if it enables action that produces competitive customer satisfaction.
After we are clear what will satisfy our customers, then we must design the actions that will produce this satisfaction. Too often I have seen companies design the database, the infrastructure, and the systems first. Then producing the needed actions becomes an ongoing battle of users trying to force the system to do what they need. Instead, you need to start with the criteria for value and design the actions and practices that will produce it. Only then can you carry out an effective design for information that supports these actions.