How and Why of User Studies: RLG's RedLightGreen as a Case Study

Abstract

This article documents a lifecycle approach to employing user-centered design, covering both qualitative and quantitative data gathering methods in support of using this approach for product design, usability testing, and market research. The author provides specific case studies of usability studies, focus groups, interviews, ethnographic studies, and web log analysis. The article supplies practical advice and tools for those interested in exploring user-centered design concepts for web-based tools and services in archives, libraries, and museums.

Archives and care: Caring archival research practices in geography

“…Theirs is a call for a transformation of archival practice based in a liberal politics of individual rights and recognition, into a practice where those affected by the archive are prioritized in all endeavours. The authors demonstrate the need for institutions to pay more attention to care and open access to records as part of generating a more critical reading of archival materials, while also imagining a more welcoming and emancipatory space that is responsive to the needs of researchers and communities (see Proffitt and Briston 2016;Augst 2017). This being a vision I would also aspire to, I ask: how do geographers work to develop relationships of care within their archival practice?…”