Blog post 10: Web presentation and design

Last week, our discussions on Interfaces shifted the coursebook's focus from a digital project's designer to the viewers of projects. After long discussions on how creators implement physical works into digital projects, what tools they use to do so, and how this is all defined by technical real-world terms, the coursebook's author Johanna Drucker has finally acknowledged the elephant in the room; what does all this look like from a viewer's perspective? Specifically, which presentations modes are used for websites, and how these presentation modes are indicative of both the viewer's experience and the content being displayed. "But online publication formats and presentation modes are also a crucial part of the work in digital humanities. Presentation formats take various forms, as was already evident in the discussion of interface." We want to present our created media to viewers, but what is the most effective way to do this? Chapter 11 goes on the specifically define each kind of presentation method, but in essence, they can be categorized into three differing methods of presentation; Collections, Exhibits, or Publications. With collections, generally your website's html does all the talking for you, with user's interactivity not particularly a concern. The next category, exhibits, is sort of the opposite of the former, while still sharing the use of HTML. In exhibits the content is presented under "a framing narrative while a repository provides direct access to digitized artifacts, documents, or resources.". Users click on various options and a backlog of information presents new information based on their choices. The last category is publications, and this fits the classical definition of it. "The basic currency of scholarship is publication. Articles, books, reviews, and essays of all kinds form the core of scholarly knowledge production and dissemination.". These categories, while being separate in their definitions, often overlap and converge to create a better viewing experience. 

Chapter 12 seeks to reinforce the prior chapter by providing a framework for a digital project's construction, but the chapter essentially surmises itself with this quote "Every digital humanities project involves intellectual, administrative, technical, and financial considerations. The success or failure of the research will depend on being realistic about the amount of support required and the commitment that is possible."

My group's MEdiation website "Carrd.co", is a site for users to create websites under the Carrd.co banner for free, or if they pay for premium it can be used like Square Space to create a website with it's own domain name. This website would best fit under the category of Exhibit, with users being able to interact with the HTML and change it completely for their own goals. This brings into question the idea of intellectual property, as if I create a website under the Carrd.co domain name using their systems, is it truly my intellectual property? Legally, probably not, however we should still ask the question to ourselves, as we put so much effort into systems that might not be receptive to us claiming our work from them.