JAH reading
Looking over the JAH review guidlines, chnm.gmu.edu/jah/index.html, I noticed that one of the things discussed was navigation and design issues (i.e. how well written and how easy it is to move around within the site) and it also made an interesting comparison to book reviewing in that regard. To comment on navigation is a necessity for web pages, but is considered rarely a point of comment for books, generally noted only when the book is obviously flawed in that regard. Would history book writing improve if issues of navigation and design were taken as seriously for books as for webpages? Or would such a requirement be an unnecessary sidetrack for a writer?
January 23rd, 2006 at 8:42 pm
It is important to know your audience whether you are writing a PhD dissertation, an article meant for popular use, or designing a website for kids. As historians we are constantly told to remember who are audience is and I think work within digital history should beheld to the same standards.
January 23rd, 2006 at 9:33 pm
An interesting question. I think that navigation for websites and books is totally different. For most books, you start at the beginning and read to the end. Websites allow a lot more mobility. So I think that navigation is much more important for websites. A lot of times, I know if I do not like how a website is designed, I will get a little frustrated. For example, I found it very easy to navigate through the Valley of Shadow website. Whereas, I was not very impressed with the design of the Remembering Pearl Harbor website.
January 23rd, 2006 at 10:22 pm
One of the things I’m constantly reminded of in my day-to-day digital history work is that people who do digital history are *explicitly* expected to be designing not just their sites’ content, but their interfaces as well. You ask whether we should be concerned with design and navigation of books; if you publish a book with an academic press, you’re pretty much banned outright from any discussions of these issues (and any author who does try to exert influence over design choices is usually seen as a problem, rather than an exemplar).
January 24th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Originally, I thought “navigation” would be a good evaluator to add to book reviews. I considered it as part of the “well-written” category. After reading the other reviews, however, I agree with Craig’s point of generally reading from front to back and navigation being very limited. That being said, I find many history books are written in a manner that only historians understand or are willing to trudge through. A little consideration towards “navigation” could be needed. Websites are a great medium for the people of today, who are renowned for their limited attention spans, so that anyone can skip around to what interest him or her most.
January 24th, 2006 at 1:05 am
Most website visitors will leave a site if they cannot find what they’re looking for in something like three clicks. They click on menus that sound like where they’ll be able to find the information, and if they can’t find it in a few clicks, they figure it isn’t there. When you’re looking at a book (assuming it hasn’t been assigned), you don’t necessarily read it from front to back. If you’re researching a certain topic, you search for books that seem to relate to your topic by title and subject. But that isn’t where we all stop. Most of us open up the index, look for the certain keywords that we want, and if we don’t see them, we put the book down, and move on to the next. My point is that there are systems that we all use to narrow our searches to find what we need, and there are certain similarities between navigating a book and navigating a website. Unfortunately, I don’t think there could be any improvement in navigating a book, but it is clearly important to make it as easy as possible to navigate websites.
January 24th, 2006 at 3:35 pm
Concerns with navigation apply to books as well as websites, but as Josh points out, authors are rarely encouraged to play an active role in determining the format of their publications. The conventions for books’ organization and structure are well-defined, so there is relatively little room for innovation — thus making any potential scholarly discussion of navigation inherently repetitive. owever, I do believe historians who write poorly organized books should be called to task for unneccessarily complicating their arguments.
On a bit of a tangent, anyone interested in experiencing a very non-traditional (in almost every way) book should check out Julio Cortazar’s novel, _Hopscotch_.
December 23rd, 2006 at 2:31 am
good blog is dead blog:-)…
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December 24th, 2006 at 11:47 am
hello, good idea…
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January 15th, 2007 at 6:54 am
hello, it’s good idea…
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