user – Online Portfolio

February 9, 2018

I enjoyed the selected readings that were recommended by my Smithsonian mentor, Pam Henson. She encouraged me to read Oral History and Digital Humanities edited by Douglas A. Boyd and Mary A. Larson before I start my internship work. The essays in the book helped me to see a different perspective of Digital Humanities, and it gave me enough background information of how oral history became integrated into the digital world. Also, oral history is a component of Digital Humanities, and it has some interesting roots. Each of the authors described their challenges and recommendations of presenting oral history on a digital platform. The methods described in the book were insightful and informative. With advancing technology, they had to constantly tweak a few things to present oral history interviews online. The concept of the audience from each author reminded me of my GMU Digital Humanities course lesson on audience or user. I thought about the type of persona they had to imagine when making adjustments to their work. In addition to budget concerns and having enough manpower, collaboration was a key factor. This book provided good resources, past and present, that revealed the changes and importance of keeping the content significant with advancing technology. I reviewed some of the older oral history websites and noticed how they much they have changed due to change in technology, budget, manpower, collaboration, and audience. Therefore, these changes are no different from creating and maintaining a digital public humanities site.

Also, Pam introduced me to 8 different Oral History websites for evaluation. Pam, Lisa (Pam’s research assistant), and I are in the process of evaluating them in order to design Smithsonian’s Oral History Archive online. So far, I have reviewed 3 oral history websites. Carefully evaluating each site helped me to come up with ideas to improve my own public humanities website. There are themes and trends that seem to be outdated on a few sites, but the content is very useful if certain things were changed. Even though I am evaluating each site from my own perspective, I am constantly reminded in the back of my mind that the user is also looking for something else. During my coursework, I learned about the importance of designing a digital platform with several personae in mind. The digital tools and presentation of the oral history interviews are very important. The description or metadata comes back to haunt me in a good way. Learning about Dublin Core at the beginning of the GMU DH program helped me to look for the basic elements for each interview. Also, I am learning to see differences on how transcripts are displayed on each site.

The work that I have completed for the past few weeks have encouraged me to use my learned knowledge during my GMU coursework and experience with designing my own digital public humanities and teaching history and literature sites. I am excited about working with Pam and Lisa. Pam has been very helpful, and I appreciate the knowledge she has shared with me. I look forward to working on their oral history archive site.

A Reflection on how Modules 4 & 5 have shaped the thinking process for designing “Koreatowns in North Texas”

Designing my project took some time, patience, and creativity. Modules 4 and 5 prepared me for a different outlook on designing my project and overcoming some minor challenges along the way. By exploring the suggested project sites in Module 4, I was able to understand how each project tries to engage the audience in different ways. Reading the articles that explain the process of designing the project was very helpful. The information on metadata was also helpful. In “Why Collecting History Online is Web 1.5,” authors Sheila A. Brennan and T. Mills Kelly convey the importance of metadata: “Without a metadata schema, however, your project is doomed to a lack of interoperability with other collecting projects that potentially threaten its longevity.” Adding metadata and adhering to the Dublin Core provided the additional practice I needed for describing my items.

Learning to add items to a collection in Omeka provided an insight into viewing it from the outside. I had to keep the audience or personas in mind when I was making the digital collection. I had to carefully select items that might trigger the interest of my audience. Also, I had to think about the interface for my project. I selected Omeka instead of WordPress because it was best suited for my project. From the article, “Generous Interfaces for Digital Cultural Collections,” “Generous interfaces provide rich, navigable representations of large digital collections; they invite exploration and support browsing, using overviews to establish context and maintain orientation while revealing detail at multiple scales. Generous interfaces use multiple, fragmentary representations to reveal the complexity and diversity of cultural collections, and to privilege the process of interpretation.” With Omeka, I can add layers of information that allow the audience to select their digital experience. Instead of a linear navigation, Omeka features sections that the audience can select in different order.

The storyboarding activity in Module 5 provided an insightful look into my project site. At first, I had the images categorized into 2 collections and 1 exhibit. While storyboarding, I realized I needed to go back to two personas because it was becoming too much. Also, I switched from 2 Collections and 1 Exhibit to 3 Exhibits. I redesigned my storyboard images while I considered two personas: primary and secondary. By constantly thinking about how the user might navigate the site, I was able to see what changes I needed to make to make it more user friendly and engaging. According to Shawn Medero, “Paper prototyping can also help improve the final product: the prototyping stage is the right time to catch design flaws and change directions, and the flexibility and disposability of paper encourages experimentation and speedy iteration” (“Paper Prototyping”). By drawing each screen, I came to the conclusion that I needed a section that allowed the audience to take part in this project. So, I added two additional sections: Cultural Events and Remembering Koreatown. Similar to the Hurricane Digital Memory Book, Baltimore Uprising, and A More Perfect Union, I added sections that valued the audience’s experience and contributions in order to build the project to its full potential. I also came to the conclusion that I would like to add another language, Korean, to my site after viewing Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives. Including another language in one or more sections of the site will add another level of audience engagement. Overall, the storyboarding activity provided an opportunity to reassess the narrative that I want to present in each exhibit as well as engaging the audience to share their narrative interpretation.

As always, content is very important. In Erin Kissane’s article, “A Checklist for Content Work,” she argues that “good content is user-centered.” While working on the infrastructure of my Digital Public History project site, I had reconsider the content. I had to think about the goals that I want my users to accomplish when they visit the site. This part is a work in progress because “content must adopt the cognitive frameworks of the user” (Kissane). I need to work on the diction and tone to capture my audience’s attention.

Modules 4 and 5 have shaped my thinking process for designing my project site. At times, I had to stop myself from doing too much and just think about it. When I was gathering my sources, I had to reconsider my personas. I realized that I had to scale down my personas from 4 to 2. Also, I had to think about the items and how they were going to be displayed. I had to revise the metadata and descriptions. This part is still a work in progress. In agreement with Suzanne Fischer, I had to “seek patterns” and take the time to think about my project because “synthesis is a creative skill that public historians can learn and teach” (“Developing your Synthetic Powers”). By looking for patterns in my project, I was able to pinpoint certain things that I had to scale back on since less is more.
I didn’t want to overwhelm my audience and lose their attention. I had to take a humanistic approach with technology. Therefore, maintaining a clear communication with the audience via the interface is very important when designing a Digital Public History project.

A Summative Blog on Audience, Engagement, and Co-Creation

Conducting research for building a prototype for a digital public history project comes with some interesting challenges. One of the challenges that I have encountered is creating a set of questions to find out more about my audience. During the early planning stage, I thought I had great ideas for whom the project will target. After interviewing my users, I realized I needed to revisit my set of interview questions. My questions were almost linear, and I needed to take less control and let the audience tell me what they are looking for. One of the audiences that I did not consider at the initial planning of my project is the audience who does not have any knowledge of both Koreatowns and Korean American history and culture in North Texas. If I could find a way to engage this type of audience, then I will have a better understanding of my audience.

According to Shlomo Goltz, “personas are one of the most effective ways to empathize with and analyze users.” Learning about personas and creating two personas for my project has helped to step back and see my project from another angle. Then, I began to understand my audience. I am currently in the process of creating a third persona to acknowledge another group of audience. Another challenge I have encountered is the technology aspect. I made the assumption that if my audience uses technology, then it will be less difficult to engage them. However, I needed to pay closer attention to different patterns of data and the data that was missing. Both users access social media, but the type and time spent for each one differs depending on what they need and want from each one. The users not only want to search for information, but they also want to learn and to be acknowledged. I plan to study more social media platforms in order to understand how each one serves a purpose for different audiences. This will help me to learn which ones serve a greater purpose in engaging the audience with the project, and it will help me to select the appropriate digital tools to engage my audience.

Furthermore, engagement becomes a key factor for keeping the audience interested, informed, and valued. They want to be part of the project in some way. Just like visiting and engaging in the physical spaces, the audience wants that similar experience in a digital space; and they want to leave a physical and digital space knowing that they have learned and/or contributed in some way. The shared inquiry between the audience and the project creators create an interesting dynamic. By inviting the audience to become part of the project, the level of engagement goes from minimal to valuable. Also, carefully researching the audience and the different types of engagement adds a humanistic approach to the project. I plan to integrate activities that both the audience and I can co-create or build the project together. In the meantime, I will continue to research the end goals of different users. Overall, the user research has helped me to view audience from a different perspective and how they play a significant role in the designing and planning of our digital public history project.

A Summary of User Research

From my research, I have learned that I need to broaden my audience. Initially, I did not consider interviewing people who have never visited the two Koreatowns and/or have no knowledge of Korean culture and history. Instead, I focused on people who have an interest or have some connection. Another thing I need to consider is asking users what they would like to know about Korean American history and culture in general instead of specifically Korean American history and culture in the North Texas area.

Regarding social media, I did not ask the purpose for using each one. Fortunately, the interviewees added that information without me asking. I have to reconsider how social media plays a significant role in their daily activities. In order to understand my users and broaden my knowledge of social media, I might consider using more social media than my usual two.

After reviewing the user interviews, I realized that I might have to make some changes to my project ideas and plans. It seems as though that my questions have focused too much on what they know about Koreatown and Korean history and culture. Due to my controlled focus, I focused less on audience. I have learned that I need to give up some control. In the article, “A Shared Inquiry into A Shared Inquiry,” Corbett and Miller argues Ronald J. Grele’s point: “A shared inquiry is a deliberate decision to give up some control over the product of historical inquiry” (20). So, I had to ask myself, “What can I learn from my audience in order to gain their attention and to engage them in a dialogue with the project?” I might consider adding a blog page for users to add their personal memories about Korean culture and connect them to their reasons for visiting a Koreatown. This page will help me learn about my audience and how they can contribute to building the project. I also need to consider the spatial components and how they affect the relationships or communications in Koreatown as well as the digital space. Instead of just searching the project site, I have to encourage the audience to explore it because “it suggests a non-linear spatial imagination rather than linear, funneled one: one inhabits a space that is being explored rather than simply forging a narrowing path through it” (Frisch 132). Therefore, the interviews have taught me that I have so much more to learn about audience and I need to revise my project ideas and plans.