Objective: Critically analyze a professional digital humanities project for its methodology, user experience, and historical argument.
Instructions: Select the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, one of the mapping projects from the Stanford Spatial History Project, or a DH project of your choice (email me if you aren't sure if it counts as a DH project). Spend time interacting with the site's maps, searchable databases, visual tools, etc. After exploring the site, write a 2- to 3-page review that addresses the following four components:
- Project Scope and Methodology Describe what the project is and the type of data it relies on. How does this digital project present historical evidence differently than a traditional academic monograph or article?
- Historical Argument Digital projects make arguments through data selection and interface design. What is the central historical question this project is attempting to answer, and what argument is it making about its subject matter?
- Usability and Audience Evaluate the user experience. Is the site intuitive to navigate? Who do you believe is the target audience for this project (e.g., academic researchers, K-12 educators, the general public), and does the design successfully serve that audience?
- Limitations Identify the limitations of the digital approach used in this project. What nuances, stories, or perspectives might be lost or obscured when history is translated into structured datasets, charts, or geographic maps?v