This Digital Humanities project provides a highly interactive comic book experience as it attempts to articulate events, ideas, and concepts leading up to  and going through the Situationist International movement.  It is quite an ambitious project given that the topic is dense requiring quite a bit of background.  The writing style uses humor and sarcasm to express emotion aiding the user to understand the ethos at the time.  The comic book format appeals to a younger audience and makes it easier to understand concepts.

Screen Shot 2015-11-23 at 11.13.30 AM

I looked through a quite a bit of projects on the Vector side and most of them were engaging, highly interactive and successfully combined various technologies, however Totality for Kids was the only one that I immediately found visually appealing and intuitive.  It did not require instructions on how to use the website.  In fact, the user does not need to do anything at all, not even click the mouse anywhere.  The site automatically takes you through the story line in a linear comic book navigation style.

My first impressions included feeling like I was going to play a game.  The music in the background with the strumming guitar conveyed a sense of a story being told, as if I should gather around and listen (or read in this instance).  The music then changes to a harder rock style with an electronic guitar creating a mood of urgency,  unScreen Shot 2015-11-23 at 12.14.33 PMrest, and action.  This engrosses the user into the story and provides the ultimate comic book experience.

It is a complete ease to navigate this site.  It immediately provides visual accordance of a chronological timeline with a sequence of numbers referencing scenes, slides, or in a comic book style, pages.  The user can either click on forward and back arrScreen Shot 2015-11-23 at 11.56.32 AMows to navigate or jump to a specific numbered scene by providing a permanent navigation pane to the left.  The site was designed to avoid the need of extensive scrolling.  Each scene is highly interactive and informative.  The user can click on elements within the scene to read more information and even cite the content.

I can imagine the designers wanting to create an experience that younger audiences can enjoy while learning about an intellectual movement that is often times a dry subject  written on the pages of a textbook.  I also believe that through this animated style and a more eccentric narrative can be created to successfully articulate and make particular concepts memorable.  The images enforce this memory and provide visual context to them.

I believe this project was successful because it engages, teaches, entertains and revives knowledge that may have otherwise been lost through other less interactive media.  This is one Digital Humanities project that does belong in and successfully employs the digital world.  It may look like a polished and easy concept now that it has been done, but how do you get here from scratch?  This, I imagine, was a substantial undertaking as it is with all intricate and elaborate literature.  The designer, however, got it right.  They choose a fitting format, used the right tone, employed the correct interaction, and made use and navigation seamless.