This week, I chose to study the Vectors project, “Technologies of History” by Steve Anderson. This project was created with the idea of historical fixations in film, television, and media. Tara McPherson writes in her introduction of the project, “The project takes as its central object of analysis one of those moments of historical fixation that seems indelibly engrained in the American consciousness, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Jr. in November 1963.” This seems fairly clear when one goes through the project; however, the interface itself can be quite confusing when thrust into it.

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While exploring the website, it becomes quite clear how to use it, and learn from the project. Although not necessarily easy to understand at first, it takes a little bit of time for the user to get used to the interface and how it functions. The website is divided into “topics” and “your history,” and from there, further subdivisions take you to your topic of choice. The topics tab and its subdivisions can be a lot to understand, but after playing around with each subdivision, it is clear that each tab will take you further into a specific definition or information regarding that topic. I think, considering the way that the author wanted you to consider every aspect of how JFK’s assassination has permeated certain aspects of media, the project does its job exactly, although it does not seem very clear from the start. I think this hurts the website, since figuring out how and why the website functions isn’t very clear and you have to dig through in order to understand, and even then it is still not very clear. The website is clean and aesthetically pleasing, and although that is good for an interface, it can still be confusing to work with. Overall, I feel like the project is successful, but only after navigating the site for a bit.