Design Demands Attention

My digital humanities eureka moment occurred at 5:20pm on Tuesday, June 5th, 2012 and its catalyst was as much brilliant design and multimedia as content. I was watching and listening to Jeffery Witt describe what seemed to me an interesting take on an online digital critical edition of an ancient work in philosophy by Petrus Plaoul when he clicked on a link, opened a hidden menu, and brought forth an image of the original manuscript text – actually one of four different editions – with two taps on a track pad I was hooked. Although I find them fascinating, text encoding and digital edition projects are not my field and I have struggled at times understanding the application.

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At 5:20 Tuesday, I got it. I see the incredible scholarly merit of many DH projects that had escaped me. While Jeffrey Witt’s project is brilliant in conception, it is the design that sparked my DH awakening. Witt’s design meets all of Lev Manovich’s key features of new media design. The project is modular, with translation and original image easily connected and navigated. The edition is automated in the presentation of the image of the original manuscript. It is variable in the choice given to the user on which section, translation, or ancient edition is accessed. Finally, the ancient manuscript images are transcoded to make them more accessible and useful in the context of a digital critical edition.

The key design feature that seals the deal, however, is that of proximity. The Latin encodings, translations, and original manuscript images are viewed one above the other with one click. Even a non-Latin reading, non-medievalist such as myself can have fun with Petrus Plaoul. In fact I have found myself going back to the site - even before I decided to write this post. Placing the new and the old work in close proximity focuses and maintains my attention.

Great design has this effect, when Dr. Witt clicked on the link to the image of the original, there was an audible rumble in the audience as eyes lifted from Twitter feeds to focus their attention on a unique design where key elements of research are placed in proximity. In digital projects great design grabs you by the shoulders and holds you in place giving the content a chance to seep in.

Explore Jeffrey Witt’s critical edition www.jeffreycwitt.com