#DHProject

Lauren Gao’s: 5 Qualities of a Good DH Project

~ Annie Swafford

Design

Time and time again, clean, organized, aesthetic design and visuals on turn up as key to  any Digital Humanities project we have done in class so far. For example, GIS mapping projects should not have all of its data sets appear simultaneously, and should give the viewer the option to toggle on/off individual data sets. In the case of Digital Archives, once again, choice of colors and images used on the home page can have a substantial impact on how the user may come to understand what the theme binds together the information in that particular archive.

Scholarly

This quality is what separates reliable DH projects and questionable ones. All the information used in any particular project should be traceable to their original source, whether it be primary or secondary, especially if the information used did not belong to the makers of the DH Project. On a Digital Archive, this would appear perhaps at the end of each object page or whenever a reference to information that was obtained outside the DH project itself.

User Friendly

Considering that every individual who makes or uses a DH project are not from computer science disciplines themselves, navigating these projects should feel “organic” or fairly easy to learn. Book Traces is one example of such, where the form to fill out the book submission is extremely easy to understand, and even provides an example on the side.

Screenshot (70)

Interactive

On of the advantages of a DH project over physical paper representations of it, is that the user is able to interact with the project by manipulating when certain bits of data or information are shown at a time. The overlay feature of GIS mapping projects is one example of this, or clicking on a pin to reveal more information about that location is another. A not so good example of this would be the maps shown on the “Art in the Blood” fan project.

Collaborative

Last, but not least, DH projects allow for extensive amounts of collaboration with individuals who need not presently be there to do so. So as long as he or she may have access to the tools online needed to make the project, any person can continue on another’s work so as long the project is open to the public. Again, Book Traces is an elegant example of this as contributing to the project’s storehouse of 19th century Marginalia is quick, but thorough.

A good DH project

~ Annie Swafford

First and foremost I think it is important to actually keep up with the project if it is something like an archive and make sure everything works. For example Sherlockian.net for me was just not a good DH project at all, but aside from not being user friendly and not visually appealing it’s biggest problem is links not working. Clearly the owner does not check up on the links and keep up with the project entirely. It is not very useful because of this.

sherlockian

DHAdditionally, a project needs to be well researched. The Old Bailey Online project is great example of this. The project offers so much to user on the topics of old London. There are several tabs you can click on that lead you to even more tabs, like if you click “Historical Background” once you get to that section you get like 5 new tabs and those give way to even more options. The project is well researched and contains a lot on information.

old bailey old bailey 2

A good DH project has to be visually appealing. Whenever I see a project that is too busy, or the colors just don’t work I usually get off the website right away. That is how I feel about BookTraces.org. Although, the project is amazing and so cool the website is an eyesore for me. The background is too busy, I don’t like the colors used and all the photographs right on the front page is too much.

book traces

It also have to be user friendly. London Gallery Project was very user friendly but, it did not let you search which then it makes it not user friendly anymore. The rest of the website was easy to navigate and nice to use until it was time to search which was a problem.

london project

One last thing a could DH project needs is to be applicable to a variety of fields. You want the project to work for several topics so that a lot of people can utilize it.

DH projects lets scholars ask new questions because they can looks at things in ways they never have before. They can take an older project, topics or question and look at in a new light and ask the question in a different way. It also lets them ask new questions because they are able to work with a variety of people all over the world. They can ask questions over a lot of fields in ways not asked before because they have the resources like those we use in class. They can use the internet to work with others and look at things differently.

How to create a successful Digital Humanities Project

~ Annie Swafford

My ideas of what creates a well done digital humanities project, it should include:

1. It should be easy to use which makes the project more desirable to that project over others.
2. It needs to be visually appealing with a well-constructed layout so the information is easily seen.
3. The project should be focused on a theme makes it more relevant for readers interested in that topic.
4. The data needs to be cited correctly, data that is from academically or scholarly sources is preferred.
5. The project should be searchable, when there are different collections of data in one area.

Questions:

1. What makes a good DH project?
A good digital humanities project is almost all of the things I stated above but can include much more. For instance, interactive DH projects make it easier for an individual to obtain more from the project with a sort of fun learning experience. Also, along with being cited correctly, a project should have an “about page,” so the people visiting these projects knows what exactly is trying to be shown through the collection of data. That data needs to be clear and focused for it to be a usable and good DH project otherwise the project will be pretty irrelevant to researchers and individuals interested in these themes. You want to make sure your DH project has a well done concept along with these other guidelines unless you want it to be an example of what not to do for a DH project.

2. How does DH let scholars ask new questions?
Digital Humanities is a newer concept that has been growing over the past few years. It is creating newer ideas and tools to help the fast paced age of technology. It has given the ability to digitize books and give us new tools and resources. This newer way of thinking lets scholars ask new questions in itself to come up with new tools that can help groups become better with literature, knowledge, and technology. For example, it helps scholars ask questions by putting together new ideas on themes that others would maybe have not paired together. Certain Digital Humanities tools lets you combine topics to see the data that comes up behind it such ask the project we did on topic modeling. You can search through many different themes that you maybe did not think they would have anything to do with each other through out novels in history.