Questions from Cherry Hill
We will be posting questions and observations here. Sometimes they may become tickets, or they may be addressed in this document or on the group calls.
Audience Questions
Many of these questions will be addressed when user personas are developed. They represent the sort of information we'll need going forward.
Who are the main audiences for the public sites?
What information do users typically come seeking?
Are users often looking for specific items?
Do users just want to know what is available?
What will serve users information needs better, searching or browsing?
Where do users get stuck when looking for resources?
Test Scenarios
On the last call it was suggested that we might be able to run some testing scenarios with real users.
What are some test scenarios that would make sense?
What would users typically do when coming to the site?
Many of the above questions have been answered by the User Tests and Personas. Additional questions are being posted as comments on these documents and will be discussed on the 9/3/15 call:
Questions from JIRA that we will be bringing up on the 9/3/15 call:
https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-942 Would like overall thoughts from WG on this. We already have ideas based on testing, personas and desired UIs, but it would be good to know more about your thoughts.
Related: https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-1031 and https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-838https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-943
Would like to discuss the real goals here, since “above the fold” is not going to work with responsive.https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-947
Would like more of an explanation of what is envisioned here.https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-948
Is this referring to the component record itself, or to search result listings? Or both? Should probably discuss since there are slightly conflicting views mentioned in the ticket itself.https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-949
Can you clarify what this refers to?https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-952
Can we merge this ticket with https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-1294? Also, what is CDL technique?https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-960
Don’t understand this or further explanation. Discuss with WG.https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-982
Can the WG expand on this more and give us an idea of the UI that you might be looking for? Examples?https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-1004
Can you tell us more about the selection of columns? Is this referring to bootstrap columns? This may be more of a conversation for us to have separately with Brian.https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-1025
Rank resources higher than components in search results? Perhaps there is a better approach (we have some ideas, like what Victoria Museum does).https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-1033
Login link for staff? Should this be part of the public UI?https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-1041
We are unclear on what is being requested here.https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/AR-1064
Request items feature.
Comments
Thanks, Krista, these are great examples. It would be great to get some of those user questions into personas. We can also incorporate some of this into testing scenarios that we develop.
I just took a quick look at some of these JIRA issues, and I can understand the confusion. Most dont have descriptions and read kind of like quick notes from a developer. Until descriptions are added that clearly identify the problem, I dont know that we can explain them!
I can with confidence say that AR-949 refers to a standard descriptive practice–it comes from ISAD(G) "Level of description. The position of the unit of description in the hierarchy of the fonds". Still not a good explanation if you're not an archivist. What the issue is requesting is that within search results, each result is identified within the hierarchy–is it a collection, a file, an item, etc. Similar to what we discussed today when we talked about search results providing some kind of context.
As I mentioned at the meeting on 7/23, users tend to come with questions. For example: "My late grandfather was a professor and then became dean, I don't know much about archives but I would really be touched to see what you have on him?" or "I want to know about how diversity has changed in the past 25 years? I'm interested in race and gender demographics" The answers to these questions could be in several "resources" (aka collections). And the words "race, gender or diversity" may not appear in any of the metadata (see: affirmative action or annual reports) . Or in the case of the grandfather, his name is all over the place because he was a dean in one department, and on some committee and taught courses. So there could be course listings and committee minutes and photographs in different resource. I would say this is typical.
On occasion, someone will have knowledge of a very specific item and will request it. This is usually because they found it cited in a publication and might want to republish it. But they might not know that you have 100 other things like it that are also interesting and answer some question they have.
I hope this helps.