The Digital Library Team: Handbook for Digital Library Procedures: Assessing User Needs

Assessing User Needs

Successful design of any electronic resource is based upon an initial assessment of the uses that people will make of the resource once completed. It would do little good to create a database containing images of pages of archival works if the primary use for the material would be electronic analysis of textual content; similarly, if scholars wished to be able to examine the calligraphic forms used in handwritten documents, text encoding of those documents would not be terribly useful. The following documents give some introduction to the issues around trying to determine users' needs before creating electronic resources, particularly in the arts and humanities.

The People in Digital LIbraries: Multifaceted Approaches to Assessing Needs and Impact
An excellent article discussing user-centered design in digital libraries and discussing its application in three specific projects.
"Unifying Cultural Memory," Jennifer Trant and David Bearman
A more theoretical and wide-ranging discussion of user needs and the production of networked cultural information resources.
User Needs Assessment and Evaluation of Digital Libraries
An annotated bibliography of links to digital articles/web pages discussing user needs assessment and evaluation for digital libraries.