[Sigia-l] Timeline

[Scott Paterson]

Eric,
You make some fine points but I must provide some more context for the EMP
project. The Digital collection, which has a timeline is a companion piece
to the entire museum experience. Visitors to the museum are given a handheld
device that they carry around while touring the various exhibits. Every item
on exhibit is tagged with an ID. If a visitor is interested in that item,
they enter it into their handheld. The Digital collection was originally
designed for large LCD screens(not the web) which are in a special resource
room. Visitors can download their selected items when they enter the
resource room. The handheld gives them a unique identifier. Visitors then
log into the interface and their choices are brought up in connected
bookmark fashion - Vannevar Bush's Memex machine was the inspiration. EMP
also gave the constraint that users could not enter search words - which
could bring back 0 results, they could only choose from pre-selected search
criteria - thus the control panel on the left. The EMP collection is
incredibly inconsistent as a collection and therefore doesn't fit into your
neat criteria for being included on a timeline. These items' value is social
constructed by their fans(it's Paul Allen collection) and therefore tend to
be deep in some areas and thin in others. The information is about
entertainment, but the aim was not only to entertain. This interface was
seen as a learning resource and was set in a special library or lab like
room for more concentrated investigations. The web version made some
compromises due to screen size limitations, connection speeds, and variable
browser configurations. The installed version is much more fluid, has
greater real estate so items don't seem so compressed and works consistently
due to it being installed on powerful machines. Lastly, if you got bored, I
would suggest it is because the content may not interest you. It is not
everyone's cup of tea - not mine. The collection is a personal collection
and its inconsistencies and irregularities were out of our control. It is
not as you promote, carefully processed content. But I disagree that this is
necessarily a cause for being a waste of time rather it is the fact that it
is someone's collection of memorabilia that makes it interesting.

There is actually an interesting essay that was written by Michael Freedman
and EMP about the process. I will try to find it as it does a good job
outlining the problems and challenges that were experienced during the
project.

Best regards,
[sgp]


----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Reiss" <elr at e-reiss.com>
> EMP seems to be aiming at the entertainment segment. However, I found
> the EMP site terribly confusing. The screen sometimes did unexpected
> things and despite the sexy expanding/contracting timeline, I never
> really got a sense of broader historical perspective. I got bored.
> Quite frankly, I though the app tried to do too much and the
> interface was way too complicated.
>
> In short, I think timeline builders would do well to reexamine their
> reasons for creating such a beast and why people would want to use
> it. As always, form without carefully processed content is a waste of
> everyone's time.