Author: kellyc

For my final project, I researched how the website for HBO’s “The Pacific” was used as a space for viewers to discuss their thoughts about the show.  What drew me to this idea was my own interest in the show and how this non-traditional space for discussion was used.  What I wanted to know was: what type of comments did people leave? What do they talk about? What is their background in history or the military?  What parts of the show do they have issues with? How many posters are having a dialogue versus leaving a few posts?

In going through the site, I was both reassured and surprised at what types of comments were left and what prompted discussion.  In my paper I argue that history presented on television is a one sided dialogue because viewers cannot ask producers what they were thinking when creating the show.  Unlike museums where a visitor could ask a tour guide or staff member why decisions were made, a viewer can only hope to find answers online.  The other issue with this is that unlike an exhibit, once the show is made there is no going back to make revisions for future viewing.  With these restrictions in place, I was interested to see how people reacted to the particular stories and information the show covered.

For the threads I studied in the “Talk” section on the website, I entered the data into charts to see what the ratio of reactions were to any particular conversation thread.  Using this data I was able to make general conclusions about how people felt about the show and its content.  For the two pages outside of the “Talk” section that I studied, I found that viewers were very attached to parts of history that had personal meaning to them.  One of the comments that had most consistent responses was a post that criticized HBO for inaccurately portraying who burned the Turkish city of Izmir.  Personally, I could not recall this part of the series and since there was a much larger message the show was trying to convey, I did not hold on to that short scene.  However, there were several viewers with Turkish backgrounds who took great offense at HBO’s portrayal of the event and they questioned the integrity of the historians doing the research.  This is the best example of how memory is a powerful tool for influencing what people perceive is the right type of history.

Overall, I really enjoyed writing this paper and learning about how websites like “The Pacific” are used to prompt viewers to post their opinions.  The site was not a traditional blog in that less than five of the 100+ comments I studied were past the year the show came out.  Viewers also tended to leave one, maybe two, comments about the show.  Unlike our class site where comments go back and forth, that was not the usual practice on this site.  This project was useful for studying the role of public memory and the changing media used to teach history.  It will be interesting to see if this will change at all in the future or if the nature of sites like this is such that they will only hold the attention of viewers as long as the series is on the air.

http://www.history.org/kids/games/magicalMaze/index.cfm

In the kids section of the Colonial Williamsburg website, there are a variety of games centered around colonial history.  Mr. Jefferson’s Mystery Maze is a quiz game that takes players through the garden at the governor’s palace in Williamsburg.  While the maze is easy to navigate for players of all ages, there are many flaws that detract from its historical value.

The game works by the player collecting clues scattered in the garden and answering questions posed by animal gatekeepers.  I do not mind that it was animals asking the questions but there was no explanation of why they were there.  The questions are rarely relevant to animals so their presence is a disconnect.  A child would probably not take as much notice or question the role of the animals but I would have liked to know their connection to the game.

Another flaw was the lack of points awarded for correct questions or explanation of the answers.  Players do not know where they stand in the game as they advance to higher levels because there is nothing to measure a players success.  The only measurement of success or failure is deducting from the three tries to get answers correct.  Once the three tries are gone the game is over.  As for the answers, no further explanation was offered to contextualize the subject.  For questions like “who polishes and files pieces removed from a mold?” the answer is “a founder” but no historical background is given.  Without a sentence or two of explanation or elaboration the game fails to teach history in an effective manner.

The biggest flaw of the game is that there is no explanation of what the end goal is.  I played for more than twenty minutes and I was given no indication that I was close to finishing the game.  There was no logic to the levels either.  As I advanced through them, the garden did not appear to change and the questions were not harder.

Overall, I do not feel this game is valuable for teaching a historical narrative.  The questions are random and do not offer any historical context for the answers.  Aside from learning definitions of jobs and people, the game does not succeed in making connections to history.  The lack of a clear purpose to the game makes it frustrating to play.

The introduction to Dan Brown’s “Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning” focuses on the significance of design documents.  These documents are important for three reasons: consistency, traceability and accountability, and insight.  A particular document Brown focuses on is deliverables, a stand-alone document that provides context about a particular idea in the larger project.

Within a deliverable, the design team can use diagrams as a way of focusing on one particular part of the project.  These diagrams cannot stand alone, they only serve as anchors that can be shared between deliverables as a way of providing context, reference points and continuity.  A key piece of these design diagrams are personas (chapter 3).  Personas are used to assist with the design process by creating an imagined target audience and trying to figure out what issues they might have and how to solve them.  Creating personas are a part of Brown’s larger goal of this book, looking at understanding the domain, stating the problem and solving the problem.

What must be considered when creating these personas?  Brown has four criteria: activities, detail, breadth and stakeholders.  Design teams must keep these things in mind at all times to create accurate and effective personas.  If they create unrealistic scenarios, they will be ill-prepared to handle the challenges that do arise.

There are three layers to creating a persona: establishing requirements, elaborating relationships and making ‘em human.  Each of these layers adds more depth and individualism to the personas created.  The first layer is the most basic information including names, sources, and distinguishing features and characteristics of each persona.  From this level, more detailed information is attached, such as scenarios, quotes, photos and even personal backgrounds.  The more detailed and organized the personas are, the more helpful they can be to a design team in achieving prioritization, validation and completeness.

When applying this to the humanities, what unique challenges do you think we face?  With history, it is a subjective field for everybody so how can we know that the personas we are creating are an accurate reflection of the target audience when there are so many possibilities as to what they might think?  How do we measure when we think we are close enough?