Post # 13. African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship

This is a current online exhibit, part of the Library of Congress’ American Memory collections.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aointro.html
Thought this would be of interest to those studying issues of race. I very much like the fact that they show primary sources, and that the site isn’t flooded with text. I’m not wild about the design, but here, content rules for me; plus the design does do the job, just not that elegantly.

Post #12. I’m ok, you’re ok.

It seems that Nielsen assumes people should want to interact on the web. I wonder why people don’t start with the opposite assumption, and ask why people should want to interact on the web.

For digital humanities to be sustainable, I think my question makes much more sense.  Digital historians have to figure out whether people will come to their site, what they need to do to make it meaningful and engaging, and how to get it funded. I don’t see this as very different from publishing a book, except that time on the web goes much faster.

Whether people interact on the site is not necessarily that important. Using the site is.

Of the 2 historical sites we had this week, I would guess that the Historic Tale Construction has many one-time visitors, whereas The Lost Museum has a smaller number of visitors, but ones who return repeatedly. The Historic Tale is fun and engaging, but once you’ve created drawings, I doubt you’ll want to return. It doesn’t provide enough content to get you to return. It allows for participation, but that is not how it should be measured.

On the other hand, The Lost Museum feels really hokey and antiquated with its virtual view, but if you get to the content, there is a lot of it, and it’s good. Well-designed search features which allow you to select media, time frame, keywords and more, would make me come back if I needed to find something. But if you really intend to do research, The Lost Museum might disappoint, since there is no controlled vocabiulary. This means that if you do separate searches for ”black” and “African American” under images, for example, you’ll get completely different results.  There is no interaction at this site, in terms of contributing, but it may well engage a non-participatory audience.

What is my point? You have to know your audience to design sustainable digital projects. Whether your audience wants an interactive website is part of the equation. What will suffice for one group, will not for another. Particpation is part of that equation, not the other way around.

Designing a meaningful, engaging site with good content should be our first priority. Functions that add value are wonderful, if budgets allow for that.