Multiuser Bibliography
User Segments
This is a brief overview of user segments I've defined for my
multiuser bibliography application, based on the discussion in
chapter three of
Garrett's
The Elements of User Experience.
(I determined these speculatively, not through empirical
research.)
This text was originally posted to the Angel site for WRA 410,
in the "Module 2 project descriptions" discussion, 2008-02-08.
User segments for this application:
- Browsers
-
Casual users who want to look at a single entry or a
handful of entries. May have found the site by searching, so
don't assume any prior knowledge of the site for this segment.
Anonymous read-only access. Tasks: searching the database by
various criteria, view summary of all or matching entries
(browse), view an entry's details, export entry (when export
functionality is available).
- Contributors
-
Regular users who are allowed to add to the
database. Will have accounts, so some basic training can be
provided along with account information. Tasks: everything for
browsers, plus log in, add entry, comment on an entry, edit own
entry / comment, submit bug report. Possible future
functionality is to create lists of entries, operate on lists
(eg export everything in list), and save lists for subsequent
visits.
- Administrators
-
Special users who can perform administrative
functions. Will have accounts; extensive site knowledge assumed.
Tasks: everything for contributors, plus create bibliography,
edit any entry, add / edit / remove users, read / update bug
reports.
(Ideally, even anonymous "browsers" could submit bug
reports. But because unprotected message-submission forms are
vulnerable to blog-spamming, this isn't practical without some other
protection mechanism such as CAPTCHAs, and they bring all sorts of
new problems — plus they have an abominally dumb name. So no
bug submissions or other input from anonymous users in the alpha
release.)