User Research

To better identify our users and their needs we used two main techniques to gather data: surveys, to gather quantitative data and semi‑structured interviews to elaborate on qualitative data[3]. Surveys were conducted using a sample of ten students from UCL with different backgrounds and interviews were carried out with two real archivists and researchers from the British Library. We tried to maintain a medium to low level of technical knowledge in order to better represent the final users.

The results of interviews highlighed the level of technical proficiency of the final users and their core needs, such as easy to use interfaces and responsive designs. From the surveys we extracted some useful data which we combined with the interviews with real future users used to design our prototype.