I chose to examine the Vectors project: Virtual Tourism. The goal of the project is to be able to navigate with as much information as possible while still being efficient. While navigating this site, it was easy to click from one link to another, receiving information that matched the visual it was presented on. The visuals were clear and the information on them was helpful and different depending on the person chosen at the beginning and the individual steps after that. Seeing all the information through a different lens, a historical one, was the aim of the project and I think it was achieved.
The project designers used an interface where the viewer needs to click through each person and catalog to reach the information in order to place them in the position of those in the past and look through their eyes at the options. It adds a historical context that wouldn’t be present if it were placed on another interface. The layers of each person through the tourism were created so the viewer can experience a sense of depth that they would if they were in that historical setting. The step-by-step clicking through in the info is effective in conveying this idea.
Overall, I would say this project is very successful. The old-timey colors, the homepage not finding any information other than what is on the website overall gives the feeling of being in the historical time period ready to experience a tour of Los Angeles back in the day. The hotel options, without colored pictures, only detailed drawings and descriptions match the editorials descriptions. The creators did a great job in matching what they envisioned to what the viewer experiences, which I believe is one of the most important parts in making a project successful. It also gives each viewer the opportunity to create their own history: by choosing what they would want to do they can view their own version of the tours. Since there is not direct path to navigate the page, each viewer creates their own idea of what had happened, while still receiving interesting and intriguing information.