The two websites that I decided to compare were, The Geography of slavery in Virginia website and the Freedom On the Move website. The very first thing I noticed when viewing these sites was the massive difference in aesthetics of the website. The aesthetics of a website can help make the information feel more immersive and interesting. The Geography of Slavery in Virginia website had a noticeably older and less engaging user interface. Where the, Freedom On the Move website has a more spread out and accessible user interface. In terms of the digital media on these websites The Geography of Slavery in Virginia site does not seem to take advantage of the capabilities of modern websites. The information on the website almost feels like it could easily be portrayed on a non-digital medium. The main importance of this website lies within hyperlinks which are embedded throughout. Outside of the hyperlinks the website does not seem to use any other techniques in terms of portraying information. There are little to no visuals on the Geography of Slavery in Virginia website to add to the users learning experience. The Freedom on the Move site makes great use of the digital medium as, the information is structured with complementary visuals that add to the experience and could not be achieved without the digital medium. In terms of viewing the creators/contributors to the website, The freedom on the Move site does a much better job at making it very easy to view the contributors to the site. One thing both of these websites do well is ease of use for the user. Both websites are concise and to the point and nothing is really confusing about either site. In terms of content however, the Freedom on the Move site seemed to have more updated information for the user to view. This contrasts to the Geography of Slavery in Virginia site as it seemed to have rather dated information however still very informative for the user.
One thought on “Blog Post 4”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
You raise thoughtful concerns and observations about these websites, and I agree with your analysis on both of them. There is a striking visual difference between the two websites and this plays an important role in user experience. The Geography of Slavery website has a copyright of 2005 at the very bottom, which signals to me that this is more or less an “archived” project, meaning that the only updates that are made to the website are ones that simply keep it viable and functional. It’s important to acknowledge, however, that the reason for this is because the creators simply don’t have the money or resources to keep their digital projects going.