A Digital Development research and discovery project to investigate changing user behaviours in an AI-enabled world
Something has been on our minds for a while now.
We can see clearly in our Google Analytics data that engagement with our Library website(s) and digital channels been on a downward trend since the pandemic. But numbers alone don’t explain why, and more importantly, they don’t tell us what to do about it.
That’s the thinking behind ‘Knowing Our Users’, a new research and discovery project that the Digital Development Team are running in partnership with Manchester-based agency Trunk.
Why now?
The digital landscape our students are navigating looks completely different to even five years ago. AI tools, large language models and video-first content have fundamentally changed how young people find information, study and engage with services like ours. Our undergraduate audience, aged 18 to 24, are at the heart of this shift, and we want to understand what it really means for the Library going forward.
What we’re actually doing
Trunk are taking a two-stage qualitative approach. First, a series of guerrilla intercept interviews across campus: short, informal five-minute conversations in the places students actually spend their time, including the Library, the Student Union, cafes and study hubs. These give us real, in-the-moment insight into how students are working right now.
Those findings then feed directly into a set of focus groups, where we can go much deeper. We want to understand how students find information, what role the Library plays in their studies, how they’re using AI tools and what they genuinely expect from a modern university library.
What happens with the findings?
Trunk will deliver a comprehensive report with clear, actionable recommendations that we’ll share with Library teams and colleagues across the organisation. We’re also hoping to present the key findings at a future All Staff Meeting, so watch this space.
Looking forwards
This project is just the beginning. The insights we gather will help shape the future of Library services, support, resources and collections in a way that is genuinely grounded in how our users actually think and behave.
Longer term, we plan to extend this kind of research beyond our undergraduate community, looking at other key demographics such as our research community, to build an even richer picture of who our users are and what they need from us.
Knowing our users isn’t a one-off project; it’s something we want to embed into how the Library thinks and works.
Find out more
If you’d like to know more or would be interested in getting involved in future research, please get in touch with the Digital Development team.