Website Evaluation

The National Geographic Society’s website Remembering Pearl Harbor provides a superb demonstration of the interactivity of digital media, and it demonstrates many good features of professional web design. Unfortunately, despite many of its “cutting edge” features, it is not a very useful site for students, teachers, and scholars.

The central component of Remembering Pearl Harbor is its stunning map interface that links time, space, and activity to describe the attack on Pearl Harbor. This interface sets a standard for web-based interactive maps that few historical sites can match. Unlike maps found on most web sites, the map on this site is highly interactive and intuitive due to a variety of reinforcing aids. The two primary aids focus the user’s attention, but they do not intrude on the viewer’s experience. The first aid is integrated and adjustable timeline that frames events in space and time. This aid also enables the user to navigate through time within the presentation. The second aid for the map is a callout that serves as the primary gateway to subordinate presentations based on specific location.

While the site's mode of presentation is technologically advanced and original, the site maintains a feel for 1941. The interface map and its subordinate multimedia recall the period through ingenious use of 1940’s-esque video and audio interfaces. Web-based video first appears as a newsreel opening, and voice-overs for specific events sound as if they are coming from tube radios. Together with the archival videos and photographs used within the site, a user may feel that they are viewing events in a manner similar to Americans who learned of the attack through newsreels in movie theaters. Also, the authors listed the sources of most images, videos, and audio files used within the site—enabling an interested reader to find those images for himself.

Though the site demonstrates some of the best features of web usability, it suffers from major accessibility problems—a surprise since large portions of the National Geographic web site provide superb accessibility features. Users with visual or motor disabilities will probably not be able to use this site. The site runs from JavaScripts, and the site designers made few efforts to include alternate text, long descriptions, or navigation cues that support reading software. Further, the screen colors do not provide sufficient color contrast in many cases. Those with motor impairments will probably not be able to select the small target areas afforded by the interface.

After the viewing the interactive map, a user will probably be disappointed with the rest of the site. Over 90% of the narratives from “Pearl Harbor survivors” come from contemporary writers who did not fight in World War II. The timelines and descriptions of units and weapons are rudimentary—providing little information of value to the historian or member of the public. For example, the site lists the location and capabilities of the ships on both sides, but it does not provide diagrams, pictures, or details other than the items listed in a basic table.

Though the site limits itself in scope to the actual attack, users will probably want more context than this site provides. Users receive no information on the Japanese attack plan or American defensive preparations. The site starts with the American attack on a Japanese midget sub and progresses through the second (and final) attack wave of Japanese. At a minimum, one will be left wondering why the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and why the American defenders were so unprepared. Sites such as the Naval Historical Center’s Pearl Harbor and the Pearl Harbor History Associates’ Pearl Harbor Attacked provide more detail, better analysis, and equally informative maps.

Though, the National Geographic’s Remembering Pearl Harbor demonstrates superb interactive design, it falls terribly short in providing sufficient content to be useful to a member of the public or the professional historian.