Week 3 – User Experience, the Web, and Digital Tools

Blog Post – Due Friday, June 10

Write a brief review for a digital tool, using the Criteria for Digital Tool Evaluation as a guide. If appropriate, include screenshots to illustrate your points. Think about why someone would want to use a digital tool, and when it would be appropriate to use. Also, discuss how difficult it would be to learn/use it in a project. You can use a tool that we’ve already covered, or a new one you select. This blog post should help you prepare for the Present a Digital Tool presentation on Friday.

This week is pretty busy. You may want to do some reading early to stay ahead.

Monday, June 6

8:30am-9am: Check-In (Library 014)

9am-Noon: User Experience and Writing for the Web (Library 014, Public Session)

Steve Krug, web usability expert, writes:

People often ask me: “What’s the most important thing I should do if I want to make sure my site or app is easy to use?” The answer is simple: It’s not “Nothing important should ever be more than two clicks away” or “Speak the user’s language” or “Be consistent.” It’s  … “Don’t make me think!”

Unfortunately, in order for your user to not think, you have to think a lot about user experience. Today, we’ll talk about the importance of design and writing in your digital projects.

  • Facilitators
    • R.C. Miessler
  • Readings and Assignments
  • Program Learning Goals Supported
    • Participate in digital scholarship activities as a part of a collaborative cohort to support digital scholarship initiatives at Gettysburg College and beyond
  • Activities
    • Look at the basic elements of user experience on the web
    • Review examples of digital scholarship projects from a user experience perspective
    • Discuss best practices for web writing

Noon-1pm: Lunch (On Your Own)

1pm-4pm:  Wireframing Lab (Library 014, Public Session)

A wireframe is a mock-up of a website, a way to sketch out the design and hierarchy of a website before getting into the technical details of creating pages; it’s an important step in determining how you want your users to navigate your digital project. Today, we’ll create some wireframes using digital and analog tools.

  • Facilitators
    • Chuck Kann, R.C. Miessler
  • Readings and Assignments
  • Program Learning Goals Supported
    • Produce documentation and a realistic project timeline to manage, record and track project development
  • Activities
    • Demonstration of Pencil wireframing tool
    • Wireframing lab using analog tools (paper, post-its, markers)

4pm-5pm: Individual Consulting Time

Tuesday, June 7

8:30am-5pm: Research/Project Work (on your own)

Wednesday, June 8

8:30am-9am: Check-In (Library 014)

9am-Noon: Finding the Right Digital Tools (Library 014, Public Session)

Finding the right digital tools for your projects isn’t easy; there are thousands of choices at all different levels of technical expertise. Today, we will review ways to find digital tools appropriate to your projects and how to evaluate them.

  • Facilitators
    • R.C. Miessler
  • Readings and Assignments
  • Program Learning Goals Supported
    • Identify a range of possible digital scholarship tools to integrate into a public-facing digital scholarship project
  • Activities
    • Reading discussion
    • Review the DiRT Directory
    • Brief presentations of tools chosen by fellows

Noon-1pm: DSSF Lunch (Specialty Dining)

1pm-4pm: Reverse Engineer a Digital Project (Library 014)

Digital projects can often be “black boxes,” that is, we have no idea what makes them tick, because there’s no documentation, shared code, or breakdown of what was done to create it. Today, we will try to pry the box open a little bit and see if we can see what different digital scholars used to create their sites.

4pm-5pm: Individual Consulting Time

Thursday, June 9

8:30am-5pm: Research/Project Work (on your own)

Friday, June 10

8:30am-9am: Check-In

9am-Noon: Present a Digital Tool (Library 014)

Today, we have you present a digital tool! You don’t need to be an expert, but you should explain what it is, what it does, how we would get started using it, and situations where it would be used, as well as provide examples of the tool in action. Use the Criteria for Digital Tool Evaluation to help guide your discussion. Expect to spend about 15 minutes talking about the tool, with 5 minutes for questions.

  • Facilitators
    • Digital Scholarship Summer Fellows
  • Readings and Assignments
    • Prepare to talk about a digital tool
  • Program Learning Goals Supported
    • R­­­­eflect upon the process of creating and managing a digital scholarship project to record and evaluate individual progress and identify challenges and best practices for other digital scholars
    • Produce documentation and a realistic project timeline to manage, record and track project development
  • Activities
    • Fellows will present a digital tool that they have selected, discussing its strengths, weaknesses, and possible uses

Noon-1pm: Lunch (on your own)

1pm-5pm: Research/Project Work (on your own)