Assignment 8 Popular and Public History Online |
3. Which of these sites has a design and interface that most effectively communicates its message and serves its audience? Devices of Wonder – I am not sure what is going on here. More directions would be helpful. The icons are small and hard to identify. How do I get back to the home page without sitting through the introduction? I am viewing this site at my on a 56k modem. It is very slow. I clicked on something called Anamorphic images and cone. While this is interesting, I have no idea where I am. I click on a message and receive a text description that only confuses me more. I have been looking at this site for about fifteen minutes and am completely frustrated. It is time to move on. HistoryWired – I read the Help instructions and then read them again. I think I am ready to proceed. Yet, every movement of the mouse results in a number of messages and images I do not fully understand. There is too much here all at once. I guess I will dive in and see what happens. I click on “People” and see an array of topics as I move the cursor around the screen. These mean little to me. Then I see Lincoln’s Top Hat. I try to get back to this but can’t find it. I do find Willie Nelson’s Jacket, the Lone Rangers Mask and Captain Kangaroos Coat. I want to find Lincoln’s Top Hat. I keep looking. I find a Playboy Bunny Outfit and Pat Nixon’s Inaugural Gown. Where the hell is the Hat? Finally, I locate the Hat. I click on the link and nothing happens. Geesh! My screen is frozen. Now what do I do? This is the best our government can do? The History Channel – I know this site quite well as do most history teachers. I first click on This Day in History. I use this frequently, as I start my classes with This Day in History. My students look forward to this and chastise me harshly if I forget to do it. Today Jean-Paul Sartre denounced the Soviet Union and Teddy Roosevelt went to Panama. I retur to the home page and vote in today’s poll: Which weapon had the greatest impact on WWI? This is a no-brainer. I select Machine Gun. Yes! 39% or 5415 votes agree with me. The other choices – Airplanes, Poison Gas, Submarine, and Tank – have fewer votes. Feeling confident, I go to the message boards to discuss this question further. There are 21 posts on this topic. I read several and decide to post my own message. Wait! I need a username and password. My first choice for username – redbaron - is rejected. I select another – trenchdude. I am in! Woohoo! Now I am admitted to a new discussion board page that has nothing to do with weapons in WWI? How do I get back there? I click on a link for WWI discussion boards, but there is nothing here about weapons in WWI. Now what do I do? I finally find my way back to the Greatest Impact on WWI discussion board and post my message: “The machine gun was the most lethal weapon of WWI. Poison gas was less lethal than normally thought. Does anyone know of any evidence that US forces ever used poison gas during WWI? I have never seen any evidence of this?” I will have to check back for replies to my query. I am not interested in purchasing any History Channel videos at the moment so I move on to the next site. Remembering Pearl Harbor – I open this National Geographic site and examine the homepage. The first thing I notice is “Beyond the Movie.” This seems somewhat antiquated. I next see the “Museum Store” which tries to lure me in with a sequence of images about Pearl Harbor. I resist temptation and go to the “Attack Map” where I am told I can “Explore the Full Story.” I am ready to go. Now I see a pop-up window with a brief text about Japan on the march. I am so less than impressed. I close the window and go to the multimedia timeline and map. This sounds impressive. I see the same pop-up window about Japan on the march. Wait! Now I am hearing music from my speakers. Where is this coming from? It is ominous and warlike. I press on. I select the “Memory Book” where I am told I will find a searchable archive of survivor’s tales. Here goes. I am greeted by a disclaimer: “Due to the immediate nature of this medium, National Geographic Online does not review, censor, approve, edit, or endorse information placed on this forum. Discussion boards on National Geographic Online are intended to be appropriate for family members of all ages.” Cool. I click on “Proceed” only to learn that the page is temporarily down. The one aspect of this site that might have been of most use to my students is unavailable. I have friends who work for National Geographic, and I will talk to them about this debacle. Meanwhile, let us move ahead.
Conclusions Now the question remains, which of these sites has a design and interface that most effectively communicates its message and serves its audience? Based on my experience as noted above, I would say that the two most successful were The History Channel and Without Sanctuary. I found navigating these sites to be relatively easy and their designs to be generally clean and free from distractions. Without Sanctuary does a superior job of communicating its message in different formats. Its high degree of success is tarnished, however, by its "Forum" which has not been updated in nearly a year. The History Channel serves a large audience of historians, students, researchers, enthusiasts, re-enactors, and others. While it may not always be cutting edge in its design and pyrotechnics, it does what it does very well and has helped to foster a virtual community of a wide variety of history types. I found Devices of Wonder and HistoryWired to be less successful in terms of design and interface. While these two were certainly far more interactive and 3-dimensional, I found them difficult to navigate and somewhat confusing. Devices of Wonder might be aimed at students and younger children, so maybe I missed something here. I was particularly annoyed that I was returned to the movie introduction each time I returned to the home page. The "About the Exhibition" page is found under "More Wonders," a tiny icon in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Naturally this was the last thing I looked at, so I spent most of my time not really understanding what the site was all about. If "About the Exhibition" had been featured more prominently, I would have had a more successful experience. As it was, I had very little context or background to appreciate what I was seeing. HistoryWired is also wonderfully interactive and fun at the same time. But its very randomness I found distracting and difficult. The Instructions in the pop up introduction are helpful though and I did find myself returning to this site for further examination. Interestingly, I went to the "Text Only Version" and found the list of items much easier to manipulate! I would bet that others have done this as well. This site does have a “Comments” section and each artifact presented has a “What Do You Think?” poll where users can vote for their favorite items. The more the votes, the larger the square. This site will certainly change over time and will perhaps improve. My biggest problem with this site is not what it does, but why it does it and who it is aimed at? I would presume a prime audience is students but there are no lesson plans. Perhaps the audience is people who have already visited the museum, or those who plan to visit in the future. This does not seem to be very well thought out. Surprisingly, I found the National Geographic's Remebering Pearl Harbor to be the least successfull overall. I expected much more from this organization. Their web site was clunky, poorly maintained, limited in its scope, with several links inoperable or defective. All in all, it seemed to be nothing more than a glorified movie tie-in that now seems grossly out of date. This account of the bombing of Pearl Harbor is definitely a dud. I enjoyed looking at all five of these. Activities such as this give me more insight into the challenges and opportunities of my own project.
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Ron Maggiano November 10, 2003 |