---
title: User personas
---

This document describes the different users we expect and design for, as
well as some hypothetical user personas.

## User types

Owner/creator

:   The owner is a user who wants to start a research project collecting
    or storing data and who wants full control over the project. This is
    also someone who has special needs or requirements, so wants
    fine-grained control over the structure and design of the data
    generated and stored from the research project.

Administrator

:   The administrator is a user who is assigned to manage the research
    project by the owner. This particular user doesn't have ownership
    over the project direction, but may need more control over how the
    data is processed and structured.

Software developer/data engineer

:   The software developer or data engineer is a user who wants to build
    a custom extension of Sprout or who wants complete control over the
    structuring and processing of the data.

## User personas

These purely hypothetical personas help us and readers in understanding
the needs of real-world users and their expectations of Sprout.

### Software Developer

-   Name: Liam O'Connor
-   Background: Liam is a software developer with expertise in building
    and maintaining software. He only recently started working with
    software that must connect with or use data pipelines. He works in a
    medium-sized company that started modernizing their data pipelines
    and infrastructure. He works on integrating various data sources and
    ensuring the smooth flow of data, so that they can be fed into
    analytic platforms and dashboards that he helps build and maintain.
    He is using Sprout because he doesn't have the time to build a
    custom solution, nor does he have the expertise to know what the
    best practices are and what the best tools are to use.
-   Goals:
    -   To develop and maintain data pipelines for seamless data
        integration into analytic platforms.
    -   To ensure data quality and consistency across different sources.
    -   To collaborate with project owners and admins for data
        requirements and technical support.
-   Challenges:
    -   He doesn't yet have the expertise and knowledge to judge how to
        build modern data infrastructures, so prefers opinionated
        solutions.
    -   He prefers open source software since it makes it easier to
        integrate with his existing ecosystem of tools.
    -   Managing and integrating data from multiple sources.
    -   Keeping up with evolving project requirements and technologies.
    -   Unsure what standards exist to make it easy to connect the data
        to other tools and platforms within the company, so prefers to
        use a tool that has some standards built in.

### Data Engineer

-   Name: Aisha Khan
-   Background: Aisha is a data engineer with a strong background in
    data architecture, data warehouses, and ETL processes. They are
    responsible for designing and maintaining the data infrastructure at
    their small research institution to ensure that data is efficiently
    stored and structured for easier use later by researchers. They are
    using Sprout to help organize and manage all the work, which they
    have to do on their own because of a limited budget.
-   Goals:
    -   To design and maintain robust data pipelines for efficient data
        processing, structuring, and storage.
    -   To ensure data integrity and security throughout the data
        lifecycle.
    -   To comply with data governance and privacy regulations.
    -   To optimize data storage and retrieval for performance and
        scalability.
    -   To collaborate with developers and project owners to meet data
        requirements.
    -   To use best practices in data engineering while having limited
        resources.
-   Challenges:
    -   Handling large volumes of different types of data from many
        different research projects.
    -   Having limited time and resources to manage all the tasks, so
        preferring opinionated and streamlined software.
    -   Trying to keep up with new technologies and best practices in
        data engineering.
    -   Troubleshooting and resolving data-related issues promptly.
    -   Keeping track of all the different versions of data and metadata
        that researchers are using.
    -   Deleting any participant data that is no longer needed or that
        the participant has requested to be deleted.

### Principle investigator/lead researcher

-   Name: Dr. Maria Garcia
-   Background: Dr. Garcia is a senior researcher within an academic
    setting. She has extensive experience in managing research projects
    and is responsible for overseeing multiple research initiatives.
    While she has some familiarity with programming, she mainly
    understands the need to use these tools to work more efficiently and
    effectively. She also values having control over the projects she is
    responsible for. She wants to use Sprout to help manage all the data
    from her research projects so that her research group can more
    easily use and analyze it.
-   Goals:
    -   To create and manage data from new research projects in a
        structured and effective way.
    -   To have full control over the research project and its data and
        metadata.
    -   To have an overview of the data and metadata collected and used
        in the research projects.
    -   To comply with privacy and legal requirements applicable to the
        research data.
    -   To make it easier for her research group to use and analyze the
        data.
-   Challenges:
    -   Balancing multiple projects and responsibilities, as well as
        many different people with different needs.
    -   Ensuring that the data is accurate and complies with research
        standards.
    -   Keeping track of all the different versions of data and metadata
        that researchers are using.
    -   Maintaining the metadata and coordinating with her group to
        document everything properly.

### Project administrator

-   Name: Chen Wei
-   Background: Chen Wei is a research data manager with a strong
    background in data curation and metadata management. He works
    closely with research project owners to support the technical and
    administrative aspects of research projects. He wants to use Sprout
    to make it easier to manage all his assigned projects, while also
    balancing the specific needs of the different projects and how their
    data is structured and stored.
-   Goals:
    -   To assist research project owners in managing the research
        projects.
    -   To handle the technical administration of the projects, users,
        metadata, and data.
    -   To resolve issues related to data quality and user support.
    -   To create and update metadata structures for data uploads.
    -   To ensure that the data is compliant with privacy and legal
        requirements.
    -   To balance the requirements of the individual projects and their
        owners with effective data management practices.
-   Challenges:
    -   Managing the needs of different people and regulations.
    -   Working with a limited budget and resources.
    -   Providing timely support to data contributors.
    -   Managing who works on the metadata documentation and how they
        can add to it without requiring too much oversight from him.
    -   Keeping up with changes in project requirements and metadata
        structures.
