Slave Revolt in Jamaica, 1760-1761
A Cartographic Narrative
Site Review By Naomi Guisintanner
During my sophomore year of college, I took my first African American History course. Out of all the courses I took during my undergrad years, the African American History courses were by far the best courses I had ever taken. Now that I am a graduate student, I have the opportunity to explore in-depth the history of African and African Americans during slavery. Which is one of the main reasons why I really like the Slave Revolt in Jamaica, 1760-1761: A Cartographic Narrative site.
This site would appeal to anyone in the way that it is very simply designed, and everything is very easy to find. The plain grey background allows for no distractions, placing all the attention on the content as well as the interactive maps. This site is welcoming and would appeal to anyone.
The layout of the page was nice, the painting of the top of the page is nice, I wish it could have been a little bit larger. There is not too much text on the first page which is comforting to readers. The way it is written is great, as you are reading each line you start to feel as though the writer is speaking to you in an informative yet friendly way. The design is excellent, simple and to the point. Its great the way they the “View the map” icon is located at the top of the painting. The navigation tool bar is located directly underneath the painting, very simply done and easy to locate. It is easy to navigate and the links load very quickly, which is a great thing. The design is very consistent throughout all of the pages, clean and easy to read. The contents of the pages flows very well and all of the writing is very easy to read.
For me the best thing about this site is the interactive maps. The interactive maps which depict 3 slave revolts, are spread out throughout the page and are absolutely sensational.
The color is great, grey was an excellent choice for this site. The only problems I have with this site is that the maps are too small. Also, the interactive maps would have been much more effective if they had audio. The header on the first page could be could be a little bigger, not too much.
Overall, this was an excellent site. Vincent Brown, the principle investigator and curator of this site, did an excellent job with the content and visual aids.
I didn’t realize that so much of why I likes the front page of the site was because of the lack of bulky text until you pointed it out. It gives just enough for you to know what’s going and where to direct yourself for more information, which means that you can known a lot within a brief 30 second perusal of the website, which I think is very critical for success. Also, I agree about the map being the best part of the site as well as the need for audio. It would be a really good addition for those who might be visually impaired,
Lusely, I agree the map issues definitely take away from the experience. This site could be some much more if the maps were larger. And although it is very well put together, the site is mostly focused on the interactive maps. Therefore, the curator should have placed more attention on the sizes of the maps.
I agree that map issues definitely take awake from the experience. One would hope that a website dedicated to a cartographic history would have large maps to interact with. I also concur that this a very well put together site. I really love the color and layout choices.
I also found this site to be very well put together; just right. However, I have to disagree that it would appeal to anyone.