Archivists
- Pam Gets an email from a researcher with a specific question (let’s detail that question here based on where we will run the tests). Runs the searches (let’s detail those searches) and consolidates the results into a response to email the researcher (turn this into a test). What does she want that list of results to look like? Is she going to provide the researcher with instructions to run their own searches, as well?
- Maynard Wants to quickly search by the specific record series number for the President George Stoddard Records to locate the correspondence series within that specific record group which he vaguely remembers as being 2/10/1. (turn this into a test) Can we get more information about what this information should look like on the records?
Librarian or Curator/Special Collections researcher
Anne When scrolling through inventories would like a horizontal ribbon that carries the relevant hierarchy information (for example series, sub-series). Need more information about this. Examples? What does this look like?
Doing their job researcher
Aimee This is someone who occasionally looks for something they need to support something else they are doing (e.g. a cool photo to post to social media, or a quote to support a speech. These uses are not in ASpace often and need to be fast when they are). How does Aimee want to see search results returned to her when looking for something to post to social media? If her search returns 100 results, how many of those will she actually look at? How will she quickly get the item she needs?
Nick Needs to be able to "save" or favorite archival objects, collections, and digital objects in a shopping cart or bookmarks for later viewing. Does he have some kind of account?
Ryan Wants to be able to pay fees online. Is this something that can already be done through ASpace? This brings up a LOT of considerations. What already exists? What do institutions do now?
Professional researcher
Stephan is an engineer researcher looking for the cost estimates used on an Air Force project from the 1970s. What does this workflow look like? How does he expect to see the results in ASpace? What will he do next once he gets those results?
Academic researcher - professor
Sally Wants to access digital images in the same place as the description, without having to click forward and back. She wants to see the finding aid, have the digital object open in a new window, and easily be able to close it to click on the next item from the finding aid. What about an overlay rather than a new window, since other personas indicate that new windows are a huge negative?
Wants to be able to find them directly by their call number which he knows already and request to use them in the archives classroom via AEON, the archive’s request system. Does ASpace already integrate this? Or is this done through a separate system? Use USC’s work to integrate Aeon (http://www.atlas-sys.com/aeon/ and https://github.com/smoil/aeon_requests)?
Academic researcher - graduate student
Julian would appreciate anything that will make creating citations easier. What would make this possible? Displaying citation information, already correctly formatted, on the record? What can he currently get vs. what would be most useful to him?
Julian is curious about which of Yale's collections other researchers in his field have found useful, and whether other researchers have published material on Copland using sources held by Yale. What would help satisfy this curiosity that makes sense and is easy to maintain in ASpace? What already exists? There are significant privacy concerns with this sort of request that would need further discussion.
Janet Wants to be able to annotate/tag results for her own use. Is this functionality already in ASpace? Should it be? Phase II?
Janet Needs permanent links to descriptive metadata. Does this already exist in ASpace? Should it be written on the screen (perhaps in the style of Youtube or Instagram share tools)?
Janet Needs permanent links to online resources. Does this already exist in ASpace? Should it be written on the screen (perhaps in the style of Youtube or Instagram share tools)?
Academic researcher - undergraduate student
Alex Will be frustrated if it isn't immediately obvious whether or not materials have been digitized. If materials have been digitized, this user wants to be able to access them instantly. (make this part of the same test above) What already exists in ASpace for this? What do users typically expect to see?
Alex Would like to be able to save and share links to finding aids that are of interest. What already exists in ASpace for this? What do users typically expect to see?
Madison Has great difficulty reading anything that isn’t transcribed. Should transcriptions be available on records (or are they already)? More information on what exists or should exist would be great.
Hobbyist / personal interest researcher
Is not cognizant of restrictions surrounding the institution's student records and alumni files, and needs to be clearly informed of any such restrictions up-front. How is this currently handled?
- Gertie Shares contextual information and research the repository can use to enhance the finding aid. How is this currently handled? How do you imagine she would share this information? With a phone call? Some kind of contextualized form? Other?
- Wants to be able to add everything he is interested in using to a set, then download all the metadata into an excel spreadsheet. Is this something ASpace already does? Wants to do?