For Tuesday’s homework, choose two of the projects below and explore (I recommend one from 1-5 and one from 6-10). You don’t need to try to see every single page or item in the project, but click around enough to get a sense of what the project is about.
- UAlbany Campus Buildings Historical Tour
- The Normal School Company & Normal School Company History
- State Street Stories
- Black and Free
- Valley of the Shadow
- Arabella Chapman Project
- Mapping Segregation
- Digital Harlem
- The Negro Traveler’s Green Book
- Visualizing Emancipation
In your comment below, discuss:
- Who is the audience for each of your two projects? How can you tell? Is the audience more specific than “people interested in history” or “people interested in African American history”?
- What kind of interactivity is there? Think back to our discussion and reading about social media. How do you as the visitor interact with the project besides just reading it? Do your two projects differ in the kind of interactivity they allow?
- Did you have any frustrations in navigating or trying to interact with the project? If you came across the project outside of a class, how would your frustrations have affected the amount of time you spent on that website?
- Reply to another student who discussed one of the same projects you selected, and discuss any similarities or differences you experienced with the project’s interactivity or your frustrations with it.
The two projects that I looked at are UAlbany Campus Buildings Historical Tour and the Arabella Chapman Project. I believe that the audience for the UA campus buildings tour is students, parents and potential educators. I say this because although the information may have some importance to the general public, it would be more important to someone that was planning on being in any of these buildings for an extended period of time; the audience for the Arabella Chapman Project is individuals with an interest in African American history but more specifically African American families, I say it may be specific to people interested in African American families because that is what this project is about and the information provided is specific to that topic.
The types of interactivity that is present in the first project is allowing people to click through and view the history of the buildings and the people they are named after which can draw the viewer or any potential students and employees to the school and for the second project the viewer is allowed to leave comments about the pictures being viewed, search tags that can lead them to specific pictures and there is a video available for watching. As a visitor, I not only read about the projects and the details involved but I searched through them, and thought about leaving a comment and a particular picture that I liked in the second project. The two projects differ in the interactivity in the way that one allows you to leave a piece of you behind and the other does not.
I did not have any issues navigating the projects, the information provided on the pages were clear and it was easy for me to figure out what to do. If I had had any frustrations and this project was something I had to do outside of class, I would have probably spent a significantly less amount of time interacting with the projects, I would have gotten upset and probably would have deemed the projects and information provided unimportant and irrelevant to me.
We both looked at the Ualbany tour. We found several of the same points especially the audience that the project is trying to achieve. I found that to be pretty straight forward to understand. I liked how you also included that potential faculty may have an interest in this project. I didn’t think of that and it is definitely a possibility.
I also agree with them, it was easy to navigate and interesting context. But for the most part the audience this project may strongly reflect on are the student, parents, and any person who interested in the history of Albany or SUNY campus. This source information provided great details.
What caught your attention on the second project that made you want to leave a comment?
I also chose the University at Albany Campus Building Historical Tour, and I think that parents of students could be a big audience as well. Parents always want to know what’s going on, or the history of where their children are. I also found these websites pretty easy to navigate.
The two projects I chose were UAlbany Campus Building Historical Tour and Mapping Segregation. The audience of the first project UAlbany Campus Tour is former, current or potential students, parents seeking for historical information about the school and possible employees interested in becoming part of the UAlbany community. I concluded who the targeted audience was based on the type of information provided by the project. For example, the project provides the location for the different campus, what year they opened, and what historical personnel are associated with the campus. For the second project, Mapping Segregation the targeted audience would be someone interested in learning more about the segregated neighborhoods of Washington, D.C. The information presented in this project is open for the general public to see. The viewer can learn about court cases associated with racial restrictive covenants which was a way of preventing African-Americans from buying homes in white communities. In addition to the cases, viewers can also see the racial population in different types of D.C neighborhoods.
Both projects allow viewers to interact in different ways. For instance, the UAlbany Campus Building Historical Tour allows the viewer to click on the different campuses and be directed to photos and background information of the campus. In addition, the viewer is given contact information in case they have further questions about the buildings. The Mapping Segregation tour compared to the UAlbany tour is more interactive. The viewers are given links that direct them to a story map (looks similar to how google maps operates). The story map provides photos and addresses of houses related to a specific court case. The map also shows the percentage of the population based on race in different neighborhoods. Lastly, the Mapping Segregation encourages viewers to leave comments or email if they would like updates on the project.
I did not have any frustration trying to navigate or interact with the project. The information presented were straightforward. Also, both projects introduced who they were and the purpose of the project. The UAlbany project had each campus in its own category and the “pretty” links in the Mapping Segregation project made it easy to view the story map.
We both chose to write about the UAlbany Campus Building Historical Tour and a similarity we both noticed about the interactivity was that the page allows viewers to click through and learn more about the buildings; anyone viewing the page can click through and read about the campuses, whom their named after and its historical significance. One thing that you mentioned that I did not notice was that contact information is given in case someone has further questions about the buildings, that is something I always look for when I am looking at a website, I like to know that people are available for me to talk to.
Good observation about the familiarity of the interface making the Mapping Segregation project easier to navigate!
The two projects I chose were State Streets Begins and Digital Harlem. For State Streets the audience is not specific to history buffs but rather those interested in Albany’s history. Based on the attention to detail of the town of Albany from the church and the minister to the materials used for the houses, this information specifically pertains to the early development of Albany. Digital Harlem focuses on events,people,places of Harlem. The audience here is anyone interested in black history, specifically the everyday life of someone from Harlem between 1915-1930. Anyone with internet can view this information.
Ive noticed that State Streets and Digital Harlem have 2 completely different user interface. Where State Streets serves as a sample encyclopedia of Albany with pictures, Digital Harlem features a map of Harlem, and numerous search preferences that include exact street address, type of crime, and race. If you know who or what you are searching for you most likely will find it with Digital Harlem. State Streets Begin interface seems too small and limited.
Good observation on the scope of information in each project–what’s the difference in the State Street project being pretty narrowly focused and the Harlem project allowing the visitor to find very specific crime reports?
I also chose State Street Stories and agree with you on most of your points in discussing it. It definitely seemed limited. There were a few pages of writing and that was about it. It was an easy to use interface, but that is not great when the content is not all there.
The two projects I chose to look at were “The Negro Travelers’ Green Book” and “UAlbany Campus Buildings Historical Tour”. I think that both of these projects were directed towards an audience of people who are more specific than just interested in history. I think that the Historical tour is directed to alumni, potential students, and current students who are interested in knowing more about the university they attend or attended. I think that it would be awesome to know how school has transformed since its establishment. When the “Green Book” was originally published, its audience was primarily African Americans who wanted to know where they could travel without being antagonized by racists. Nowadays, the audience of this publication would be anyone interested in seeing how oppressed the African Americans had to live in our history.
The interaction between the audience and the projects both differ in several ways however they both give the audience a personal experience. The tour gives tourists a first hand experience of walking around to older buildings and may give the audience a sense of actually attending school at that time because they will actually get to go to some of the old buildings and locations. The books interaction gives the reader a slight glimpse into the tough life of African Americans and not being able to travel where they might truly want to go with fear of harm from racists. However both of these projects are very easy to navigate and understand the concepts they are trying to get across.
Good observations about the audience for the campus buildings tour being able to walk around the buildings themselves. That’s not so much the case with the Traveler’s Greenbook–do you think it makes a difference for how a visitor interacts with the website, if there’s no possibility of them seeing the place themselves?
I think that our websites interactive features were similar in that they both are relatively easy to navigate. The description that you gave sounds very similar to the navigating aspects in the State Street Stories project that I looked at. However the Digital Harlem project that I visited appears to involve a little more complexity and in depth research than the projects that you looked at. I don’t think either of them were very difficult to navigate and I didn’t run into too much trouble. However, I do think that if I was to look at the Digital Harlem website outside of class that I would become easily frustrated with how to properly use the map if I did not take the time to look at the “how to” section.
Tmckenna and I both chose to write about the UAlbany Campus Buildings Historical project. We both had similar ideas about who the audience of this project was. Tmckenna also made a good observation that the tour showed the transformation of each campus. Another point Tmckenna made was that interacting with the project gave the audience a first hand experience and a sense of actually attending the school. I thought this was a good point because any good project should be able to captivate the audience and make them feel a part of the tour.
The audience for my first project appears to be students, parents, or faculty of the University of Albany (UAlbany) who are interested in the history of the university. The history of UAlbany website did not seem very interactive besides being able to move through pages of the website, and find facts about specific parts of UAlbany. My only problem or frustration with the website was that one had to flip through many pages (specifically in the downtown campus portion). I flipped through all of the pages expecting to find more information on the uptown campus, but found very little. Had I been looking at this for enjoyment, I probably would have not spent very long on this portion of the website because the information I was clicking through was mostly about who the dorms were named after. Although interesting, there were many of these parts and it did not hold my interest for long.
My second website was focused more on racial segregation, as well as the expansion of Washington D.C. This would be interesting for people interested in both topics, as well as the process of urbanization. This was interactive specifically on the maps portion, flowing between time periods and areas of the city. Some portions even allowed one to click on an area to find more information. I found it a bit frustrating because there were so many complex parts involved, so the website seemed to load a bit slow for me. In addition, one has to scroll through the information to get from one area to another. It would have been easier to click on the topics, such as in the UAlbany history website. Although the information was very interesting, it was too frustrating to scroll, and wait for the website to load, to be worth my time.
I chose the same second project as you did, and experienced the same level of frustration while on the actual site. The loading of the maps, as well as the side information made it increasingly annoying to even stay on the site. I found the information I did get the chance of reading very interesting but did not have the patience to remain on the site in order to learn more. In my opinion if the site went more simplistic with its interactive level more people would actually enjoy the information it holds.
The two projects that I chose were “State Street Stories”, and “Digital Harlem”. The audience for the State Street Stories project would be anybody that is interested in the history of Albany. The website provides an abundance of information about the historical past of Albany and goes into detail about specific buildings and streets in the Albany area. The audience for the Digital Harlem website would be anybody that is interested in a historical view of Harlem from many different aspects. The site provides information about Harlem such as being able to lookup which crimes have been committed in Harlem. This can be broken down even farther, by specific crimes committed by which race and even when the crimes were committed.
Both of the projects had an element of interactivity for the visitors of the websites. The State Street Stories website had a few different pages that you could click on to navigate the site and read about different historical aspects of Albany and let the reader choose which sites they wanted to learn about. Most of the website consisted of mostly text to be read by the visitor. However, one of the pages had an interactive map of the D&H building. The map allows the visitor to click around on different parts of the building and explain the significance of each point of interest on the building. The Digital Harlem website was the more interactive of the two websites. The website consists of an interactive map that allows visitors to map out different area’s of interest all around Harlem. An example of this is that it allows visitors to map out the border of the black settlement in the years 1920, 1925, and 1930. It also allows visitors to layer their own custom points of interest and create their own map of Harlem depending on what they are interested in. This could range from something as general as all of the parades in Harlem that took places between 1915 and 1930, to something as specific as the locations and dates of all of the car accidents in Harlem from 1925-1930.
I didn’t encounter too much difficulty when it came to trying to navigate either of these sites. The State Street Stories site is relatively straight forward to navigate around. It has links at the top of the page that tell the visitor which information can be found on which page and once you visit each page it immediately comes up with the text about each of the topics. The Digital Harlem website was a little more complicate to use. There is no immediate instructions about how to conduct a search for information and I struggled at first to successfully get what I was looking for. However after spending some time to look around the page I found that at the top of the page there is a “How to” link for how to navigate the map and retrieve whatever information it is that you are looking for.
We both chose State Street Stories of Early Albany, the similarities we have in our discussion of the website is that we both notices that you can enlarge the photograph. Allowing the audience to get a better idea of what early Albany was like. We also both agreed that navigating through this website was not a problem.
The two projects I selected were The Valley of the Shadow and Visualizing Emancipation. The first project The Valley of the Shadow, in my opinion is aimed at students, educators, and historians as the main audience. I also feel that the audience is more specialized to American History students, educators, and pre and post Civil War historians. The second project Visualizing Emancipation, in my opinion is aimed more specifically at educators, and historians in the African American slave era, and after because of the immense amount of information the site holds. The Valley of the Shadow is very interactive in a simplistic manor. The Valley of the Shadow has three main sections, The Eve of the War, The War Years, and The Aftermath, which all allow you to click on an even more specific topic with in the sections such as; Statistics, Diaries and Letters, Newspapers, Census and Records, and Images, which then brings you to a set of links within that specific topic. The Visualizing Emancipation is a far more complex interactive site. The Visualizing Emancipation site allows you access to a map, as well as a list. The map pin points locations that involve the following topics; Abuse of African Americans, African Americans Helping the Union, Capture/enslavement/re-enslavement of African Americans by Confederates, Capture of African Americans by Union troops, and Fugitive Slaves/Runaways. The interactive list on the Visualizing Emancipation site allows you to read short synopsis of what occurred at each pin point on the interactive map. The Two projects I chose differ in interactivity in the complexity between the two sites but in my opinion the information is displayed relatively similar, both sites allow more then visual interactivity.
I became extremely frustrated with the interactivity of the second project Visualizing Emancipation. The interactive level of the project was far to complex for me to fully enjoy the information that the site was actually trying to lay out of me. My frustration with the site itself caused me to cut my time exploring the information shorter then what I spent enjoying the first project The Valley of the Shadow. A more simplistic interaction between the map and the list on the Visualizing Emancipation may have made it easier, and more enjoyable for me to explore the information it held.
The two historical projects I examined are the UAlbany Campus Buildings Historical Tour and Digital Harlem Tour. The UAlbany Historical Tour appeals to residents of Albany, NY with a particular focus on residents whom have attended the University at Albany while The Digital Harlem project appeals to a wider audience of early 1900s, New York State, Manhattan, Harlem, and African American-focused historians or people interested in those topics.
The UAlbany Campus Buildings Historical Tour offers a rather simplistic experience of showing information related to one physical area, before allowing the user to proceed to the next. On each page, the user is treated to historical images and descriptions of areas of interest at each UAlbany campus. The interactivity is minimal with the only user-accessible functionality being the buttons to see the previous page or move on to the next.
The Digital Harlem project, on the other hand, is massively more expansive and interactive. It covers data collected from Harlem crime records between 1915-1930 and allows users to search the database of information with a robust search tool. The aforementioned search tool allows users to search the database for specific events, keywords, dates, convictions, locations, locations, and even the birthplace, occupation, race, and gender of any potential participant(s).
Thankfully I did not experience and issues or hassles when interacting with each of these projects.
I also used the Albany buildings website and found that the site was lacking in many aspects. I found this to be very frustrating when trying to find things to write about when there was only so much on the site. Most of the other sites had many other features and were more expansive compared to the buildings tour.
The two projects i choose to explore was the “Digital Harlem” and the “UAlbany Campus Buildings Historical Tour”. The UAlbany Campus Buildings tour was directed at an audience of current and soon-to-be students, employees of the University, former students and people who want to know more about Albany’s history. The Digital Harlem project was very interesting and directed towards those who live in or close to the area, people considering moving into or close to the area and people who need to know more about that area.
Both consisted of some interactivity by the viewer. The UAlbany tour had brief slides with a few pictures and some information about specific buildings. To navigate to the next building, the user clicked the “next” button and it smoothly changes the interface. The Digital Harlem project has a widget on the side that you can type in different crimes or activities that have occurred in a certain timeframe, that is also adjustable, so you can see exactly what happened and where and how often its happened.
I had no frustration with using the interfaces of both the websites. They each had a smooth and quick transition from page to page and it was easy to move along quickly. Both the projects would have kept me engaged outside of class because they are particularly interesting and they each relate to me at least slightly, so the lack of frustration has no effect on the time i would spend on either of these websites.
I also chose to use “Digital Harlem” as my project. I also found it interesting as well as informative. I as well didn’t have any frustrations while navigating “Digital Harlem”. I found it pretty straight forward and simple.
I chose the history of the campus buildings, as well. When I worked at my community college’s library, what surprised me was the type of audience who not only put together similar projects, but the audience who accessed it the most- it wasn’t students or even professors, but older citizens of the county. I suppose having that much time on their hands lends them to volunteer jobs like these.
Do you know if any of the older folks were alumni?
The two projects I chose were “Black and Free” and “Digital Harlem”. It would appear that the audience of “Black and Free” seems to be people who are interested in knowing the relationship between the Albany history and African American history. “Black and Free” speaks a lot on Albany’s historic black land owners (such as Dinnah Jackson). The project “Digital Harlem” seems to be directed at people who are interested in information about Harlem’s history and events between the years of 1915-1930. “Digital Harlem” allows the user to interact by allowing the search of events, places, as well as people. Interaction isn’t the case with “Black and Free” which doesn’t have anything to interact with. Luckily for me I didn’t have any frustrations in navigating or interacting with either project. Had one of the projects given me any trouble I most likely wouldn’t have spent much time on it.
I chose the same two sites to navigate and I agree with the fact that there is nothing to interact with Black and Free, while Digital Harlem leaves it up to us as visitors to seek the information about Harlem on our own. That makes it more interesting in my opinion.
For this weeks assignment the two websites that I have chosen is the State Street Stories of Early Albany and Mapping Segregation. For the Early Albany website I believe that the audience that this website would be focused on is people who are interested in the early days of Albany and people that are interested Architecture and Religion in Albany. I have come to this conclusion because the website goes into detail about the location of the church, how the church was built with stone and tells the reader about the small steeple that was placed upon the church. Then it goes on to talk about the house throughout Albany, built of stone with white pines for shingles. The website talks about how the house was built with the old Frankish style in mind. The interactive part of the website is on the left hand side there are pictures of Albany during the time period the website is talking about. If you click on the picture it will enlarge the picture. Within the website there is more options to learn about different parts of Albany such as “Hudson River Basin”. I had no problem navigating this website, it was straightforward.
For my second website which was the Mapping Segregation the audience for this particular website may be people who are interested in African American History, along with Civil Rights Movement. The interactive part of the website is with the text, some of the words are in blue. If you click on them it will direct you to another website that shows a map of what parts of Washington DC was like segregated. In addition there are experts on the left hand side. Once again I didn’t have a problem with navigating through this website. It was easy to understand and find what I was looking for. The two website differ because the Mapping Segregation can lead the reader to different websites within its pages. Street Stories only focuses on its own pages.
The two project I chose are State Street Stories and Digital Harlem. As far as the audiences go I think that they have very different audiences. State Street Stories is a more specific audience in my opinion. This makes sense because Harlem is a way more well known area than State Street in Albany. I would say that people interested in the history of Albany and more specifically State Street are the target audience for State Street Stories. Digital Harlem could be more aimed towards those interested in New York history in general as it is a far more well known area. In terms of interactivity there are also major differences. Digital Harlem is very interactive and honestly requires you to be interactive and engage in looking into events. State Street does not require you to be interactive. There are different pages you can go to, but once there it is just a page of reading. The only perk of being less interactive, in my opinion, is ease of use. State Street Stories could not be more straightforward to use. There are a few pages to read from and that is it. You click and read. Digital Harlem being more interactive means it may be slightly more frustrating to use, but it is honestly not a problem. It was still not hard to use, just comparatively it seemed slightly harder. I was not really frustrated by either project so if I came across either outside of class the time I spent on the site would not have been affected.
I can definitely relate to your observations of the two projects that you viewed. One of the projects I chose to view was more interactive and at first I was a bit confused, but it was more engaging than the project that used a classic method for its viewers. In addition, the project I read about the contributions of people of color to Albany history as well as the economics of the time period was definitely specific and directed towards a certain audience, as was the project I read about the place of people of color in Washington D.C. society and politics. However, the second project I skimmed over seemed to be directed towards perhaps a larger audience because people would most likely think of Washington D.C. before they think of Albany.
I also chose to look at State Street Stories and agree with your analysis. I would also add that along with those interested in the history of Albany and State Street, those interested in learning how a city in general develops along a trade route, in this case the Hudson River. Yes, State Street Stories was very easy to read and the pictures did allow for some interaction.
I think the most obvious audience for the “Campus Buildings Historical Tour” would be students who either live in the buildings that were discussed (such on the Alumni Quad) or who spend a lot of time on the downtown campus for classes. But I’m sure there are older generations who have a unique interest in the history of Albany (or you’re just a younger student/Albany resident who has a very unique interest in the history of Albany (because I have a hard time imagining someone under the age of, say, 60 who has the time and resources to invest in an interest like this). And while the most obvious audience for “Black and Free” is a black audience, business majors would probably have some interest in how the evolved economy before, during, and after the Civil War allowed for the expansion of exactly who was allowed to own and run a business.
Neither project allow much interactivity. As far as I could see, there was no possibility within the projects themselves to learn more about specific buildings or people- if a student wanted to do that, they’d have to open up a new tab and search for the information themselves. This was a frusta=ration I had with both projects, but I can see how having a more interactive interface like that would require not only more work and time, but probably a larger interest group than the ones that each project reached out to (i.e., who would want to spend all that time linking Wikipedia pages and searching for more information on all of the SUNY Albany buildings for an audience of maybe a few hundred people?). Searching for more information led to me eventually being frustrated with the relative lack of knowledge that each project offered (although admittedly the “Black and Free” project had a lot more information than I ever would have even thought of looking up), and simply closing out the tabs in favor of the sites that held more information.
The sites I explored were Black and Free and Digital Harlem. There were very different in terms of approach and interaction with its targeted audience. Black and Free appeared to appeal to potential students, researchers, and/or anyone interested in African-American History in the Albany region. The information was very detailed and included pictures that supported the information. The end of the page included sources, but lacked any interactive aspect to the audience.
Digital Harlem had a specific year span (1915-1930) in a very specific African-American driven part of Manhattan. It was a completely interactive in the sense that you are able to choose a specific time period, person, or place and map where he/she, or the event took place. Similar sources are hyperlinked so you can easily look at the pages.
There was not any difficulty in navigate the pages as they were straight forward. As a visitor I think that I would not be interested in the Black and Free page as much because I am just reading pages of information versus Digital Harlem page, where I am actively finding information on my own.
The first website that I chose was The University at Albany Campus Buildings Historical Tour. The audience for this website would mainly be students who attend, or are alumni to the University campus. Another audience could be parents or family members of students who attend the school, as well as people who work at the University. The interactivity on the website is pretty simple. You just choose from the different buildings on campus and it tells you about each. As the visitor it’s easy to understand the layout and easy to navigate. I would spend the amount of time navigating the website outside of class. I found it pretty interesting to see the history of the school that I’m attending.
The second website that I looked at was The Arabella Chapman Project. I think that the audience for this website would be people who live in Albany, and who are interested in the history of Albany. The interactivity of this website is pretty simple as well, and if you can’t find something you’re looking for, there is a section on the side where you can find key words that you might be interested in. The key words range from infants to Wood’s. This website also offers a lot of pictures from the photo albums of the city. I didn’t find and frustrating aspects about navigating the website and I would probably spend the same amount of time on the website if I wasn’t taking this class.
The two websites differ in the audiences because the first website is mainly for people who are interested in the University of Albany, while she second pertains to Albany history.
http://www.albanycounty.com/Libraries/Hall_of_Records/Black_and_Free_Exhibit_for_Website1CC.sflb.ashx
This project seems directed to those that are interested in the impact of the Black community in regards to Albany’s history. I’ve realized as a result of key terms and phrases throughout the project such as “prominent”, “free”, and “buying property in Albany”. As oppose to solely summarizing historical content, this project provided visual aids of primary documents. Unlike social media, this project didn’t provide an outlet for viewer feedback.
http://jmt.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/?appid=061d0da22587475fb969483653179091#map
This project seemed like it was from the perspective of someone that’s interested in what place the Black community did, or didn’t have primarily in 20th century Washington D.C. Personally, I love the lay out of the project and in my opinion it’s interactive. Viewers can also share the map’s information on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter! This project was a lot easier to navigate and if I had to choose between the two, I’d choose this one not only based on content, but because as oppose to traditional scrolling down the last page, this student presented it in a different way. In a sense, it’s kind of like viewing a power point presentation versus viewing a prezi presentation.
I too chose the Mapping Segregation exhibit, and I actually didnt realize that the tour could be shared on Facebook and Twitter, which surprises me but also makes sense as a good way to get the word around about the exhibit. I also found this to be a great online tour and one element that I found especially great about it was that from topic to topic the site guided you on a map to where the event occurred. Along with providing a legend displaying historic black populations in the neighborhoods that the tour brings you to, I find it really helps the viewer have a better understanding of the events that the tour is explaining. This I feel makes it much more accessible to those who aren’t big history buffs, which I feel is important for an online exhibit such as this.
The two websites that I chose to use were the UAlbany Campus Buildings Historical Tour and Visualizing Emancipation.
For the UAlbany buildings site, I think the audience would be for someone who is in some way affiliated with the university. Those being student,staff,alumni, etc. I don’t think that this would really be for anyone beyond these people because just because I feel like the people that outside this group nobody would have the interest for a historical tour of UAlbany just like I don’t really have any interest in other universities. This website wasn’t interactive beyond being able to navigate the website. It looks like this hasn’t been updated since 2003 when it was created. There isn’t any place to contribute or anything so the site is very one sided. The most frustrating thing for me was how primitive the website was. It clearly isn’t up to the standards of modern web design. If I were to have encountered this site on my own I wouldn’t have really paid any attention to it for the previous reasons, however if the site was updated I would be interested in spending some time looking at it.
As for Visualizing Emancipation, it appears that the audience is for teachers or people that want to take a more quantitative approach to emancipation. I feel like their audience is fairly small this site is definitely for people who are knowledgeable about the subject and would like to contribute. This site is fairly interactive for the type of content that it is putting out. You can add an event to the map that is provided which I would assume is moderated in some way and you can chose what you’re looking for with the various drop bars to create a more specific experience. I did not find this website to be a frustrating as my first example, this website is well kept and is regularly updated. I don’t know if I’d use this for a project or anything because I don’t like the quantitative approach and I don’t think I would contribute for fun either
For my two selections of projects I chose State Street Stories and The Negro Traveler’s Green Book.
State Street Stories deals specifically with the history of one of the more important roadways in our city of Albany. When I first began reading about the history of State Street I thought it would oly detail the construction, evolution and importance of the street. While the project does do this, quite effectively I would add, it also gives a rough history of the city itself. The target audience for this particular project would be historians and enthusiasts interested in the history of the city and how a city develops along a waterway. You can determine this by not only reading each tab but by paying particular attention to State and Pearl. In this section we read that the State Street we are familiar with today (a rather wide section) was created by actually demolishing some businesses and other buildings.
The Negro Traveler’s Green Book is remarkably different than State Street Stories. Victor H. Green started writing guides in 1934 for African-Americans to follow as they travel in various areas of the country. He would continue to update this until 1964. The intended viewer for these series of maps was African-Americans during this three decade period. The audience for the project is anyone interested in African-American history and/or the Civil Rights Movement. The interactive map allows for the user to travel the country digitally and find places of historical significance that once served as safe places for people of color. Interestingly, there are four local results included in the book. Three of the four are hotels which is expected. The fourth is a tourist home of which the purpose baffles me.
I did not encounter any frustrations navigating either project. I do, however, wish there was a history included of each hit on the map though I do realize the amount of extra work that would have to go into researching hundreds and hundreds of places.
I chose the history of SUNY Albany campus as well as digital Harlem. For the first project it directs it attention towards student, parents and people who are interested in the history of Suny Albany campus. This piece of history favors towards people interested in Albany history. As for the second source of information, it directs its attention towards people in general or whoever interested in the history of Harlem, and interested in crimes, specific events, and people during the time it haves available.
The two project are greatly different, while the digital Harlem history display so many information about personal people background, events, and crimes amongst other things that involves within the area. However Suny Albany history shows history based on a particular focusing on one topic. Digital Harlem is great if a person was moving into the area and try to gain census like information, and data.
I was confused on how to use the map, for the Digital Harlem, more complex to navigate and understand what to search for. However if I did came across this project outside of class I would have been clueless as to what is the correlation and my frustration would had made me put off this work for last minute.
The two exhibits I decided to explore were “State Street Stories” and Mapping Segregation. each covered much different topics in history and generally went about expressing their topics in different ways. State Street Stories takes look at the varies parts of Albany’s long standing State Street and reflects upon each areas long history. Its not a digital tour for the faint of historic heart as it clearly caters to those with a strong interest in look at Albany’s storied history. Each page, reflecting on a different section of State Street is full of information as told by historians or first hand accounts, with only historical or artist renditions to accompany the writing. While easy to navigate a no errors to speak, its a exhibit that would be hard to take in for avid history fans. Then there is Mapping Segregation, which seeks to provide a guided tour of Washington DC spots of segregation, along with their corresponding histories. This is a bit more accessible for the average reader and provides an in depth look for those fans of African American and Civil Rights history. Going in chronological order, the exhibit follows neighborhoods, trends and court cases that experienced segregation through the nation’s capitol. Also, besides the words and images that accompanied the other exhibit, this one features a map that follows with the event that is being read. This map, which also features information on white and ethnic populations, guides the reader to exactly where and how an event occurred. With no problems to speak in execution as well, this exhibit clearly shows a through, yet more streamlined approach to an online historical tour.
I viewed the same two projects you did and had a little different point of view on the first one you spoke about. But to be honest, now that I look at it a little closer, it is much more in depth and detailed than the other project. I didn’t really pick up on that when I initially read through the project.
I also chose State Street Stories and Mapping Segregations as my two potential projects. We both agreed that navigating through State Street Stories was not challenging because it did replicate the order of an actual tour, therefore allowing the viewers to easily comprehend the timeline of the specific sites mentions.
The two projects I looked at were fairly detailed in their descriptions. Although both were very informative there was definitely little to no target audience for either of the two other than those who are interested in history or black history. The State street story is about 350 years of Albany history just giving an overview of specific dates and places that are important to its history. The other project, was about segregation and obviously would be of interest to those who are looking to learn more about black history.
To be honest I wasn’t really impressed with the interactiveness of the first project, on the history of Albany. It was fairly bland, just kind of a “click here to read about this” site. They did have an interactive picture of the D&H building which was a nice added feature. The second project, Mapping Segregation, was amazingly interactive. On the left was the story and information on the history, along with links set in, providing easy access to more information off site. The rest of the screen was taken up by a full interactive map, and as you scrolled through the story on the left, the map moved with you: automatically zooming in on key points in the writings. Overall i was very impressed with how well this project was done. I found no frustration with navigating either of the pages. Both were very easily to navigate and understand.
The two projects I chose were State Street Stories and Mapping Segregation. The audience for State Street Stories seem to be travelers. I say this because this project illustrates Albany’s architectural sites from 1749. It gives readers a summary of what Albany looked like then and now. State Street Stories audience specifically targets people interested in history. This website allows individuals to interact by clicking on different tabs and viewing pictures and the necessary information that goes with the pictures. As I visit this particular site, my interaction with it simply include an analyzation of the different photographs.
The audience for Mapping Segregation seems to be historians who are specifically interested in African American history. This website allows the viewer to see the media coverage that took place during the time this occurred. By doing so, the audience sees what others had to say about this topic and the movements made because of this event. As a visitor to this project, my interactions also include leaving a direct comment regarding my personal opinion about the information displayed on the site.
Both projects allow some sort of interactivity, but Mapping Segregation takes it one notch higher because it allows viewers to leave a comment which creates a dialogue between the audience and the creators of this project. Navigating and interacting with both projects were fairly effortless. If I came across these projects outside of class and realized the navigation and interactivity of these projects were difficult, I would probably discontinue my search.