I chose a project from the Difference section of Vectors called “Blue Velvet: Re-dressing New Orleans in Katrina’s wake.” The site focused on how New Orleans has changed and been affected by Hurricane Katrina, and relates issues of the city’s recovery to those affecting the entire country. Navigating the site was much different from what is typical. Instead of presenting information in simple, essay-like format, Blue Velvet’s interface consisted of animated graphics of the New Orleans landscape. Instead of the typical structure of having content within several tabs of the website, headings would scroll across the top of the screen and clickable links to topics would appear briefly as well.
Music was an integral part of the experience of using the site. When you are on the homepage, there is more subtle background music imitating waves on the beach and the background of silhouettes of homes in New Orleans. However, when you click a link to a subtopic, the landscape moves as if in turmoil, the animation slides as if moving underground, and the music shifts to a dark and dissonant theme music with drums and creepy-sounding vocals. Within these subtopics, there are a few paragraphs, which are laid out crookedly and sometimes even run over each other. There are also further links to photographs and videos which contain further information.
I think the designers made these decisions about Blue Velvet’s unique interface to intuitively let the user feel and understand on a deep level what New Orleans has faced through the emotional music and feel of the site. When you dig further and click on more and more subtopics, the transitions between the moods parallel the realities of the deeply rooted political problems which plague the city and worsened the effects of Katrina.
Although the site can be a bit difficult to navigate, as the clickable links are literally flying by on the page, the designers did a good job of balancing the need for being able to access content and still portraying an anxious mood by having a link to an index where the user can quickly and easily find a key term like on a traditionally designed site. Overall, the innovative design seeks to convey beyond just the historical facts, and effectively emphasizes just how devastated New Orleans has been from the hurricane, and engages the sympathies of the user unlike a more basic webpage could do.