This course and project have been an eye-opening experience for me. Going into the course this semester, I felt confident. What I learned the previous semester in Intro to Digital Humanities made me think that I was ready to create different digital projects. However, I soon discovered that I still had much to learn. One of the significant aspects of this course was learning about the importance of audiences. I was ready to dive head-first into creating my project.

Nevertheless, learning about different audiences made me step back and think. The audience I want to create a project for will influence how I design it. Thinking about the project I created, if I had gone in without thinking about the audience, it would not have been a successful project. I knew that I wanted to create a collaborative project to start a conversation on the memory of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Arizona Memorial. I could have just created a simple website that allowed users to do that. However, learning about audiences this semester changed my thinking and planning. I realized that just making that website as I had initially planned would not be successful. Some of that audience might have yet to go to the memorial and want to learn more about it before giving their story. It also made me realize that other audiences might use this website. Other people might want to keep their stories private and will strictly visit the site to learn about the history. Thinking about this audience helped me understand that I needed to add more, and that created a more well-rounded and more prosperous project. In the future, I will always think about that before I start creating a project. Last semester, I did not even think about who the audience might be, and now I wonder if I had if it would have created a better project. It might have changed what I would include or even added more to what is already there. Learning about the importance of audiences changed how I approach digital projects and how to make them successful.

On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese Empire attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. They destroyed naval ships and airplanes, killed hundreds of sailors and personnel, and forced the United States into the Second World War. That day would always be, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt stated, “a date which will live in infamy.” The attack will forever live in the memories of the country and its citizens. However, these memories differ for various reasons, which is my project’s argument. People who have visited the memorial might have different memories of the event compared to people who only learned about it in school or had a family member serve in the war. This project hopes to show that people have different memories of the event and create a conversation around those memories.

I created a contribution element on the website to create this conversation around memories. Users can share their stories or images to contribute to the overall discussion. I have also added a section on both the stories and image contributions that asks users if they know anyone who served during that time or was there during the attack and if they have stories to share about them or if they told stories to them they would like to share. What people remember about their family members’ stories affects their memory of learning about the attack, so I added that feature for those people to share to create a more varied and rich conversation. While the project focuses on the memorial and remembrance of the event, there will be users who have not necessarily visited the memorial or have little knowledge of the event and want to learn more. The project has three exhibits to provide a memorial and historical background for those wishing to learn more before contributing. These exhibits are also there for the secondary audience of people researching the event or memorial. These exhibits hopefully provide an opportunity for people to learn more, and those contributions will discuss their prior or nonexistent memories and what they have learned while exploring the site. For example, one user only has prior knowledge from what they learned in high school. They looked through the exhibits and learned more than they had in school. In the contribution section, they discussed their prior knowledge and how learning more about it changed their views and memories of the attack.

I will look at the contributions themselves to see if these elements are performing as I want them to. If they provide various voices with rich conversations, I know they are performing well. However, there is a chance that the conversation is not varied or rich. At that point, I will see if it is a problem with outreach or if the forms on the contribution page need to be tweaked to allow for more varied conversations. Tweaking the contribution forms could mean changing the wording so users can understand the questions better or adding more elements or questions. When it comes to the exhibits, there are two ways I can see if they are performing well. One way is to look at the contributions and see if some mention the exhibits. Another way is to look at the views that the exhibits receive. If there are a lot of views, not just of the main page but also of the following pages, I know that users are looking at them and are appealing enough to look through the entire exhibit. If there are not that many views or many views on the main page but not on the following pages, they are either not appealing enough and more needs to be added, or more advertising of these exhibits is needed.

So far, with my project, I have completed three of the six pages in my exhibits. I plan on finishing those remaining three pages tomorrow. The next goal for this week is to fine-tune the website. I want to make sure that everything is running smoothly not only on desktop but also on mobile devices. I want the website to be usable on any device. I also want to see if the contribution page is working properly. I will add my contribution to the site so that I can see if the contributions are not only added but also included in the contribution collection. I will also see if family members want to add their contributions on different devices so I can see if it is working properly. The main challenge for this week is my health. I suffer from chronic pain, specifically migraines, and they heavily affected me this past week due to not only the crazy weather in Virginia but, more importantly, my stress levels. I want to ensure I do not stress myself out this week to get my work done.

This week, I was able to make my website more user-friendly. I changed the design to make it more appealing and created drop menus to make navigation easier. I also added a social media bar to the collections and individual items so users can share them with their circle. This could easily promote the site itself and potentially gain more users. One of the most significant changes I made was to add two new pages to the exhibits. I added a subsection to the After the Event page under the Historical Background exhibit to provide films created in a partnership between Hollywood and the United States government. Many of these films influenced the memory of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and they can provide not only historical information for researchers but also give the primary users, the contributors, more ways to think about their memories of the event than what was previously planned for the website. I also created a page under the About the Memorial Site exhibit titled Memorial Films. While finishing my research about the memorial, there was an emphasis on the films made for the site. For the same reasons as the previous page, I felt that creating a page dedicated to those films would benefit users.

One of the challenges for this week is to put in the information gathered for the exhibits. Now that the exhibit’s design and layout are complete, I can put the information I have gathered from my research on these pages. Another challenge is finding the items for the website. I still want to find a few items, especially when creating two new pages. Fortunately, I have already begun this process, so the hunt will not be extensive. This week’s last challenge is setting up the terms and conditions for the contribution page so users know what is expected and what they can expect from contributing to the project.

At this point in my project, I have found historical information that I will include on the website. One of the goals for this week is to continue looking through the material that I have gathered, including those discussing the memorialization of Pearl Harbor. I also plan to write out the information I have collected and make it understandable and beneficial for all website users. Unfortunately, I could not focus on my time management skills with the project and my other school commitments. I plan to make that my primary focus for the next couple of weeks to catch up and stay on schedule.

As said before, one main challenge is getting back and staying on schedule. Another challenge that I want to work on this week is making the website not only user-friendly but attractive as well. When I add the information to the website, the style, navigation, and exhibits are effortless for users. This would also give me an idea about how the information and format will look. I also want to do this before so that it will be less of a headache. One thing I learned last semester is that if you wait till the end to change the style and format, it can mess with how the information looks on the website, and it will not be user-friendly. Working on the format and style, I can see how the information and material will look on the website and plan accordingly.

So far, with my project, I have created an outline of how I want the website to look and how people can and will navigate the site. I have begun adding images, videos, and audio to the site and am looking for more. I have created different collections to divide the items to make navigation easier for users looking for specific items. There will also be a section dedicated to the contributions that users give. I have also created four exhibits for the site. The Historical Background is divided into four sections, each containing cited historical information. There will be a page with information on the Arizona Memorial. Finally, I have a section with further reading and information that will give users different sources and websites should they want to learn more. There will also be a link to this section in the other exhibits. I have also set up the contribution page, but I still need to set the terms and conditions for contributing.

I have a couple of challenges that I will work on this next week. The first challenge is the historical information that will be included on the site. I have begun to start reading the sources I have collected for research. However, the challenge is deciding on what information I want to include. I must be limited in what information is included, but I must also provide enough to satisfy different users. The second challenge is just time management. I am working on this project while also taking another class and with work on top of that. I will figure out how to divide my time between the project, my other class, and work so I don’t overwhelm myself and give each the required time.

After completing the readings for this module and thinking more about my project, I realized that I needed to revise my personas slightly. Below are my now-revised personas.

Persona 1: Primary Target Audience

Name: Anthony Sutherland

Demographic:

• Age: 35
• Gender: Male
• From: Sacramento, California
• Education: BA and MA in Economics
• Job: Financial analyst
• Income: $75,000

Descriptive Title: The Cautious Visitor

Quote: “I like to do my research before visiting a site”

A Day in a Life:

Anthony is a financial analyst for a company in Sacramento, California. Most of his time is spent working with little time left for himself. With this, he is picky about what he chooses to do with the small amount of free time he has for himself each week. Usually, when he has the choice, he chooses to spend that time outdoors, especially at national parks.  He says California, and the neighboring states, gives him plenty of opportunities to spend his time outdoors and national parks. However, before deciding what to do, he conducts research online. He wants to ensure he can get the most out of a place before he throws away his extra time. He also likes to learn more about other parks he can’t visit based on his work schedule. He likes websites that can give him information contained at the site without him visiting.

End Goal: Anthony wants a website that can give him historical or scientific information so he can either decide whether or not to visit or learn more about a site he can’t visit in person.

Persona 2: Secondary Target Audience

Name: Layla West

Demographic:

• Age: 42
• Gender: Female
• From: New Orleans, Louisiana
• Education: BA and MA in History, MA in Museum Studies
• Job: Educator at the World War II Museum in New Orleans
• Income: $55,000

Descriptive Title: The Lifelong World War II Historian

Quote: “World War II is one of the most fascinating moments in history. I’m always looking to learn more about it.”

A Day in the Life:

Layla is an educator at the World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her job consists of helping create exhibits, lesson plans, and programs at the museum. These responsibilities require her to know about the history of the topic or topics she and her team are focused on. While she does use physical forms of scholarship, she mostly turns to digital forms to conduct her research. She especially takes advantage of websites that use different media forms to tell a topic’s history. She feels that physical forms of scholarship that lack these different forms are not as engaging as these digital sources. She thinks that websites from the National Park Service and the Library of Congress provide the most valuable sources for research. However, she finds it takes a lot of time to gather the sources from the different websites. She likes to take advantage of websites that contain many sources and material she needs for her research all in one place.

End Goal: Layla would like a website that contains much of the material on a topic’s history.

On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese Empire attacked Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii. Many lives were lost that day as the Japanese destroyed American military planes and ships. The day after, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan and enter World War II. That moment served as one of the turning points of the war. In 1962, the government built a memorial to commemorate the attack on Pearl Harbor. Named after one of the ships destroyed during the attack, the USS Arizona Memorial is visited by many people each year wanting to learn more and pay respects. When people visit memorials, they think about the event and their feelings. Their thoughts then add to the ever-growing remembrance and scholarship of the memorialized event. The digital public history project will focus on this remembrance and thoughts about a historical event commemorated by the USS Arizona Memorial. The project hopes to answer how people who visit the USS Arizona Memorial feel and think about the event, what happened afterward, and how that affects and changes how they remember it. With this in mind, the project will include sources and items from different points of view. It will include commentary from visitors on their thoughts and a way for them to contribute to the project. There will also be historical background sources for people who have not visited the memorial, giving them the opportunity and accessibility to contribute to the project.

            The presentation of the project will be through an Omeka website with the contribution plugin installed to allow users to share their thoughts on the memorial and the event. Other plugins include CSV Import, Docs Viewer, Embed Codes, Exhibit Builder, and Simple Pages. The website will also have different forms of media to increase accessibility, including documents, photos, audio recordings, and videos. These items will provide information about the memorial and remembrance, including historical background about the event and World War II. For example, one of the items is a video of Japanese Americans sharing their experience after the attack and during the war, providing both background on remembrance and history. Another source showcases a transcript of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech, providing historical background and serving as a way for people to garner their own ideas and thoughts about the event and memorial. Those contributions will be added to scholarship about the event and the memorial as people contribute.

            The project will focus on two groups, one primary and the other secondary. The primary audience is those contributing to the project with their thoughts on the attack, the events afterward, and the memorial. The project’s main purpose is to discover how memorials serve as a way for people to remember an event in history and how people remember both the main event and the events that happened afterward. The material provided also helps those who have not visited the memorial learn and think about the memorial and the events. The hope is that they, too, can provide their own understanding of the history and the memorial even though they cannot visit the historical site or have not. The secondary audience is historians or those interested in the event’s history or the war. The website also provides historical background while including sources that focus on the memorial and remembrance. The project will also include scholarship sources for further research. Historians can use the project as a research tool, and those interested in the history can use it to learn more about the events. While the project’s primary purpose is for people to contribute, it will also provide historical background for other users interested in the event and memorial.

Researching how different companies use personas to gauge who may or may not be their audience made me think differently about the website I am creating and who might be a user. According to Shlomo Goltz, in his article “A Closer Look at Personas: What They Are and How They Work,” states, “A persona is a way to model, summarize and communicate research about people who have been observed or researched in some way . . . Each persona represents a significant portion of people in the real world and enables the designer to focus on a manageable and memorable cast of characters, instead of focusing on thousands of individuals.” (Goltz, “A Closer Look at Personas). According to Goltz, personas are a way for someone to narrow down and focus on the different traits of people rather than a generalized public. Before looking at personas, while I thought I was narrowing my primary and secondary audiences down to more descriptive characteristics, I was not looking at the bigger picture. For example, for my project, I stated that my primary audience includes everyday American tourists of national parks or memorials with at least a high school education. However, that was not as narrow as I thought. After reading about personas, I did not consider why people visit these places, what they might have been interested in school, or their degrees. I also did not consider the people who necessarily do not visit these places. According to the WOSP Personas, some people visit, occasionally visit, or do not visit at all. Different audiences should be considered when designing a project to incorporate ways that might make them users. (WOSP Personas).

The Pew Research Center’s research on internet, mobile, and social media use has also made me reconsider who and what my focus is on. According to the Center, mobile use plays a big part in peoples’ everyday lives. The Center states, “Mobile devices have changed the way people think about how and when they can communicate and gather information by making just-in-time and real-time encounters possible. They have also affected the way people allocate their time and attention.” (Pew Research Center, “Three Technology Revolutions”). The last line made me think about how I need to design my project to make it a website for people who want to “allocate their time and attention.” According to the Pew Research Center, social media use has risen in the past years, stating, “The rise of social media and social networking has affected the way that people think about their friends, acquaintances, and even strangers . . . One of the major impacts was that the traditional boundaries between private and public, between home and work, between being a consumer of information and producer of it were blurred.” (Pew Research Center, “Three Technology Revolutions). Again, the last part struck me. For my project, I plan on making the website collaborative. With this new information from the Center, I see that social media can be used for people to be a “producer” of information for the project.

Hi, my name is Audrey Schroeder, and I am a graduate student working towards a Master’s in history. This is my second semester in the program at George Mason. Before this program, I received my Bachelor’s in history at the University of Mary Washington. I tend to focus on popular culture and World War II in American history. Before I chose history as my major, I was initially working towards teaching in Early Childhood Education. My background in digital humanities at the moment is limited. My research, in general, takes advantage of digital sources. For example, my senior thesis at Mary Washington was on Hollywood movies used as propaganda during World War II, which required me to find and watch said movies. I also made use of individuals involved during that time. I also had an assignment in one of my classes requiring me to record the metadata for a document in an archive for the school. So far, at George Mason, I took Intro to Digital Humanities last semester, which I enjoyed. I decided to include the certificate along with my major because my ultimate goal is to work in a museum setting one day. Since digital exhibits are becoming more of the norm, learning how to create them would be beneficial. My goal for this semester is to learn how to create accessible digital exhibits for the public.