Customer Analysis for the UT Austin Law Library Rare Books & Special Collections Website
6/15/2016
Customer Analysis
The Rare Books & Special Collections at the University of Texas at Austin Law Library
documents the unique history of Texas and the United States law through rare and valuable
documents, including over 100 dictionaries. Housed at the Joseph D. Jamail Center for Legal
Research, its mission is:
“To promote access to these resources by preserving them in a safe
and secure environment, helping researchers locate and use them,
and promoting their use through exhibit tours, publications and
other outreach activities.
Through monetary donations and gifts from personal libraries, the UT Austin Law
Library has been able to develop an impressive collection of Spanish, Mexican, Roman, Scottish,
French, canon, and international law dictionaries.
In the hopes of impressing the general public and potential donors alike, the library needs
to develop a more organized, easily navigated, and easily browsed Internet presence for its rare
law dictionary collection. This Customer Analysis defines the anticipated audience for the Rare
Books & Special Collections Law Dictionary website. Our goals are to understand the
motivations that would drive users to visit the website of a rare collection of law dictionaries, to
gain insight into their browsing and navigation behaviors, the technologies they use, and their
social and organizational issues.
People
The first step in our customer analysis is to define our audience. In our initial meeting
with Mike Widener, Head of Special Collections, we discovered that our prioritized target
audience is potential donors to the Rare Books & Special Collection. In essence, the site is
Created by the Information Architecture Team: UT Law Library
Customer Analysis for the UT Austin Law Library Rare Books & Special Collections Website
6/15/2016
primarily a way for the library to highlight the impressive collection it has acquired throughout
the years, and to solicit donations from those looking for a suitable location for their rare and
valuable materials.
At our initial group meeting, we established the need to gather information on existing
and past donors of the Rare Books & Special Collections so that we can contact them for input
on the new website. Widener must approve this list, as he will need to eliminate donors who
may not be able or willing to participate in our study and prototype tests.
Although donors are the primary audience, we must also remember that researchers and
students might also benefit from having organized access to this information. Too much
pandering to potential donors might not only turn off those donors, but also other parts of our
audience.
Technological Capabilities of Users
We also expect our donors and patrons to have standard technical capabilities, software,
and hardware. Since the rare law dictionaries website largely inherits the standards and
architectural style of the larger law library website, we work within the technical specifications
chosen by their information architects. That said, we foresee a need of only average web
navigation skills and average software to accommodate our design, which will include mainly
hyperlinks, text, and images.
Profiles of User Tasks
The following two user profiles and scenarios illustrate the type of users we anticipate
will visit the site, as well as their expected thought process for understanding and navigating the
site.
Created by the Information Architecture Team: UT Law Library
Customer Analysis for the UT Austin Law Library Rare Books & Special Collections Website
6/15/2016
User profile and scenario 1: Jason is a Doctoral student at the University
of California at Berkley. He is working on his dissertation, a history of saints.
Jason is now looking up information on Sir Thomas More who was beautified in
1836 and canonized as a saint in the Catholic Church in 1935. From his research,
Jason has learned that most of the intriguing information comes from memoirs of
people who personally knew the subject. He also knows that one of More’s
sisters, Elizabeth, married the prominent lawyer, John Rastell. Jason is now
trying to locate works by Rastell in the hopes of finding some commentary on
More and to better understand English law during that time period.
User profile and scenario 2: Craig just won his largest lawsuit. While
studying at UT Austin, he often fell asleep in the library and learned to love the
place. He would like to give back to the library, and with a tax write-off, is more
than willing to donate $20,000. He is visiting the law library website, hoping to
find a worthy cause. Although he doesn’t like flashy stuff, he also feels that a
website reflects a company’s level of professionalism and integrity.
The user profiles and scenarios help us focus on how to make the Rare Books & Special
Collections into a more appealing and informative website. We assume at this point that our
patrons will be highly educated and wealthy. Therefore, the redesigned web site should be more
sophisticated than the existing site to attract and maintain their interest.
Created by the Information Architecture Team: UT Law Library