I chose the project Digital Dynamics Across Cultures under the Ephemera category. This project is focuses on the Warumungu people from Central Australia and their cultural norms. My initial impressions of the website were that it has a very simple interface – and this often very advantageous. A pop-up immediately opens on the screen that explains what the project is about. The layout of the website is clean and streamlined. There are three distinct pages and their headings are easy to understand.
When navigating through the three separate pages, a new textbox appears at the bottom providing a two to three paragraph explanation of the topic. These pages are not information heavy at all. The bulk of the data and research are presented in the map on the front page. This stylized map image includes seven floating balls that represent cultural names and artifacts of the Warumungu people. The data represented by the seven floating balls change each time your reload the site. This attribute of the website, as later described, truly captures the ephemeral nature of data and intellectual property.
Each time you click on a floating ball, a new page opens with information about that item. Also, a sound byte plays as you click on the ball. This is a nice touch because the user’s action is acknowledged and the sound indicates that the action is being carried out. Further, as you click on different balls, a faint line outlines the order you clicked on the balls. This is a unique method of providing a history of the user’s clicks.
The website has very clear indications of how to navigate from one page to the next, and back to home page. One feature that I appreciate is the return to map icon. After clicking on a floating ball, a new page opens on your screen and the user can no longer see the map. However, the website designers made sure to include a small triangle in the top right hand corner as a way to get back to the home page.
The editorial statement outlines how the designer of the website, Kim Christen, created a layout and an information representation that embodies the idea of the “ephemeral” and the fluid nature of intellectual property. I think Kim Christen is very successful in conveying these ideas. She presents small amounts of data in each visit to the site. Therefore, two individuals that see the site at the same time may experience two very different, but also limited, data sets. An individual who visits the same site twice will not see the same cultural protocols at each visit. This conscious decision successfully embodies the idea of the transient nature of data and intellectual property and it strips down the idea that intellectual property must operate within either the public or private realm. Christen enables the Waramungu cultural norms to inhabit both the public and private sectors of the online environment.