Persona: Academic researcher -- undergraduate student
The following personas seem to group together under the category of "undergraduate student" – please consolidate into one or two personas with very specific stories.
Claryn Spies (Unlicensed) has taken responsibility for consolidating and refining these personas by .
This persona consolidates “Nigel,” “Donna Doe,” “Alex,” and “Madison.”
Alex, age 19, undergraduate student
- Unfamiliar with institution’s holdings, but looking for an interesting senior essay topic that will make heavy use of primary sources at institution.
- Has never done research in special collections before and is unfamiliar with common restrictions on access.
- Does not know what a finding aid is. Easily confused by archival jargon. Expects that searching will be intuitive (requiring no prior training) and immediately produce relevant results.
- Lives on campus, but dislikes having to go to the library, and prefers working on a computer. Would like to search for and instantly view online everything that is fully digitized. Will be frustrated if it isn't immediately obvious whether or not materials have been digitized.
- Expects search results to appear in order of relevance. Is frustrated by text heavy records that require scrolling or to determine if relevant.
- Interested in accessing audiovisual materials when available.
- Doesn’t like deciphering cursive and 19th century handwriting, and would prefer to read and search digitized transcriptions whenever possible.
- Would like to be able to save finding aids that are of interest in one place for future reference, and to share links to items of interest with professors and other students.