Developing new technologies in
line with user needs
Society of Archivists 2003
Anna Sexton
Copyright, UCL
LEADERS: Linking EAD to Electronically
Retrievable Sources
Talk outline
• Introduction to LEADERS
• The LEADERS Archive User
Survey
• User evaluation of LEADERS
• Demonstrator application
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LEADERS: Linking EAD to Electronically
Retrievable Sources
Introduction to LEADERS
• Based in SLAIS; funded by the AHRB
• Began October 2001; completion March
2004
• Project team:
– Susan Hockey (Project Director)
– Chris Turner (Project Manager)
– Anna Sexton (Project Archivist)
– Geoffrey Yeo (Project consultant)
• Website: www.ucl.ac.uk/leaders-project
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LEADERS: Linking EAD to Electronically
Retrievable Sources
The aim of LEADERS
• LEADERS Project aims:
– To enhance online access to archives
– To provide the tools that enable archivists to
develop ‘document-centric’ archive
applications where transcripts and digitized
images of archive documents are presented
to users alongside complimentary contextual
information
– To integrate EAD, EAC, TEI and NISO MIX to
enable the creation of such applications
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LEADERS: Linking EAD to Electronically
Retrievable Sources
Project Deliverables
• LEADERS Project deliverables:
• Tools
– A suite of tools for archivists to support the
encoding and on-line presentation of digital
representations of archive documents
• Application
– A demonstrator application for search,
retrieval and presentation of those digital
representations in a Web environment
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LEADERS: Linking EAD to Electronically
Retrievable Sources
The LEADERS User Focus
• Archive users are at the centre of our research
and development
• This is the key to developing useful archivebased systems
• ‘Designing usable web-based systems that
effectively serve remote researchers requires a
thorough understanding of how and why people
seek information in an archival context’
Wendy Duff, 2000
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LEADERS: Linking EAD to Electronically
Retrievable Sources
The LEADERS User Testing
Strategy
• Engage a representative sample of archive
users to act as a base for assessing user needs
and behaviour
• Develop a demonstrator application to act as a
focus to spark user opinion and ideas
• Assess user needs and behaviour by allowing
user interaction with the demonstrator and
gathering feedback using qualitative data
collection techniques
• Feed the results back into the ongoing
development of the toolkit and demonstrator
application
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LEADERS: Linking EAD to Electronically
Retrievable Sources
The LEADERS Archive User
Survey
• Lack of generic information about archive
users
• Developed categorisation model
• Used model to formulate questionnaire to
learn more about archive users
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LEADERS: Linking EAD to Electronically
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Survey Results
Purpose of Research
22%
2%
13%
education
personal leisure
personal obligation
3%
profession/occupation
60%
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LEADERS: Linking EAD to Electronically
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other
Survey results
Research Interest
23%
Individuals, families,
organisations
1%
places
topics
12%
64%
other
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LEADERS: Linking EAD to Electronically
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Survey Results
Familiarity with Research Interest
7%
44%
Very familiar
Reasonably familiar
Unfamiliar
49%
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LEADERS: Linking EAD to Electronically
Retrievable Sources
Survey Results
Familiarity with finding aids
27%
Familiar with finding aids
73%
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LEADERS: Linking EAD to Electronically
Retrievable Sources
Unfamiliar with finding
aids
Survey Results
Familiarity with Source Materials
Familiar with source
materials
42%
58%
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LEADERS: Linking EAD to Electronically
Retrievable Sources
Unfamiliar with source
materials
Survey Results
Familiar with Archives on Internet
Familiar with archives on
internet
45%
55%
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LEADERS: Linking EAD to Electronically
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Unfamiliar with archives
on internet
How is LEADERS using these
results?
• Results to first two questions used to
formulate representative sample of
users
- Purpose of research
- Research interest
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LEADERS: Linking EAD to Electronically
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Use of focus groups
• Testing the fundamental concepts and
design decisions that underpin the
demonstrator
• Not testing at this stage:
– Performance, in terms of response times or
no of hits returned etc
– Detailed data about design- colour schemes,
font sizes etc
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LEADERS: Linking EAD to Electronically
Retrievable Sources
The Demonstrator Application
• Leaders Demonstrator Application
• Used as a tool to spark user feedback and
evaluation
• Two sample collections:
– George Orwell Archive
– UCL Archive
• Contains 17 documents
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LEADERS: Linking EAD to Electronically
Retrievable Sources