Tag: timeline

March 9, 2018

For the past few weeks, I have been working with Pam and her assistant Lisa to redesign and re-envision the Smithsonian’s oral history website.  After reviewing, evaluating, and discussing 8 different oral history websites, each of us came up with ideas for a website redesign plan.  I used the skills that were learned during my GMU Digital Humanities coursework.  I also incorporated skills from designing my own websites.  I imagined at least 2 different personas to approach my design from an audience’s perspective. Then, I typed a document that explains each part of the redesigned website.  After I wrote my draft, I sketched what the redesigned website would look like.  I learned this skill in Dr. Leon’s class when I was designing my public history website.  I drew 4 different web pages of the website with a pencil (traced it over with a dark blue ink pen) on white sheets of 8 x11 paper: main page, about page, oral history interview pages A and B.  I included a menu with clearly labeled buttons that will allow the user to learn about the site, navigate the oral history collections, listen and/view the oral history interviews, and read about interview’s background. It also included copyright information, a finding aid, map, timeline, and a contribution page for future crowdsourcing.   Then, I scanned the completed sketches and saved them into a .pdf file.   At the time I was redesigning the website, I was unaware that they had a current website.  I was referencing the old website from 2004.  I was informed about the current website when Pam, Lisa, and I re-convened to discuss our redesign plans. Fortunately, it all worked out.  I suggested adding a timeline and map.  The importance of having a timeline and/or map was something I learned in Dr. Kelly’s class. It helps the audience visualize the locations and time period when connecting them to the historical content.  Also, I suggested placing a short video 1-2 minutes on the main page to introduce one of their featured collections to draw in the audience and engage them to explore their site and oral history collections. The other option was to include 1 or 2 paragraphs about the featured collection with selected images.

The next part of my internship is to create a way to sort and bring one of the collections together.  Pam has suggested focusing on women at the Smithsonian, so we agreed it was good start. I received several audio interview recordings, transcripts, blog links about Lucile (Lucy) Quarry Mann.  I am in the process of listening to the interviews while viewing the transcripts. Each interview is 30 minutes or more. During this time, I have created a short video (59 seconds) to get an idea of what a short video would look like to draw the audience to Lucy Mann’s oral history interviews.  I used iMovie to created my video.  Since the video was too large to send via email to Pam and Lisa, I had to post it on my YouTube Channel. Here is a link to my humble and short video:  https://youtu.be/caC-9EFBcGM

 

A Reflection on Doing Local History or Affinity-Group Community History Mediated by Digital Technology

Working on local history or an affinity-group community history mediated by digital technology invites various challenges.  One challenge involves communication via the digital space.  Selecting the right interface to present the public history contents requires carefully paying attention to the audience, design, and content management.  Another challenge is creating ways to engage a broad audience. The digital public history site needs to be displayed in different ways to capture the audience’s attention in order to engage them.  According to Gutterman, “Digital history scholars have emphasized the need for interactivity, but most digital history Web sites fail to attain this goal” (“Outhistory.org” 102).  So, various digital tools or plug-ins have to be tested in order to find the right ones for engaging a broad audience. The third challenge would be designing the project’s site with various digital tools to create and share historical knowledge with a broad audience.  For example, Outhistory.org invites the audience to “Create Content” and to share their stories “Tell Us Your Story.”  They allow the audience to take part in building the digital public history site.  Whether the audience is a scholar or someone from the general public, the digital technology must be accessible and user-friendly.  The last challenge is to constantly keep the communication open for collaboration of new and shared ideas to maintain the digital public history site.

After carefully reading the articles and viewing the project sites of local history or affinity-group community history, I have noticed several things that I need to consider with developing my project.  I am in the process of looking at another plugin to add to my project site. The plugin would be for a timeline.  Another thing I would like to consider is reorganizing the featured sections. I may order the sections differently.  Also, I would eventually need to test the site with actual users, people who represent my proposed audience/persona.  Testing the site will help me see the flaws and gain knowledge about my real audience.  To broaden my audience and to encourage more people to contribute to building the Koreatowns in North Texas project, I would like to add a Korean language feature; so I can include both English and Korean.  Also, I have learned that I need to collaborate with more people who have knowledge about the Koreatowns and Korean American history in North Texas. The collaboration will help me with designing a bigger picture for my project. Therefore, while I am selecting the digital tools and designing the interface, I have to keep in mind the audience and the communities throughout the development of the project.

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