When sharing history with the public there can be many avenues to creating a user-friendly, understandable, and engaging narrative. Using Bill Ferster’s 2012 Interactive Visualization: Insight Through Inquiry as background information and his ASSERT model as the method for creating digital visualizations to share information with users in a more engaging way.

            Ferster’s ASSERT model begins by focusing project creator’s mind on asking questions that will engage selected audiences in a way that makes sense to them and engages users in the research process. Then the creator is responsible for finding and structuring the information found within a variety of archives and databases and setting that information up in such a way that it makes sense to users, allows users to explore sources and the visualization the creator has made, and answers the questions that the creator asked users in the first place. Behind the questions that the user is engaging with is a narrative that the creator has structured information around. (pp. 40-41)

Although I enjoyed Ferster’s easy to understand model, I needed the summaries he added to every chapter. These were immensely helpful, especially when his extensive list of sources and methods of visualization got a little bit hard to understand or distinguish. I felt like this was a book I needed to read in order to grasp a deeper understanding of what visualizations can be used to show and how they make sure that information can be better understood. As new and hands-on as visualizations are, when one is learning how to construct them or what the different uses of them might be, there is only so much one can do to make the topic interesting. This is by no means the fault of the author; he goes into detail about every aspect of his ASSERT model and this detail serves as a great reference book when one is trying to gain more understanding on how visualizations can be used in different contexts across history.

I found Ferster’s section on representing visualizations very helpful. His section on the importance of “interaction” in such a way to make users understand, remember, and gain meaning from a visualization seemed incredibly useful (pp. 117-127.) One thing I was concerned about when beginning this book was the application that it still had in this age of social media. Although 2012 doesn’t seem all that long ago, there have been significant changes in the way users interact with the internet and how many people are using social media platforms. However, Ferster addresses my concern by discussing the same concepts that we have about social media today; mentioning the importance of pleasure and aesthetics in the creation of interactive visualizations. To me this seems to be the key to creating a project that will gain attention and traction. I’ve been thinking about regarding my own digital project and my own use of social media platforms like Instagram to share research. When social media is so widely used and sets a standard for how people interact with online platforms, how do the digital humanities compete? Is it better to create these interactive visualizations or is there a way to build projects or share research while utilizing the platforms people are already engaging on?

Coming up on the end of this semester, there are several classes in which I must create a digital project or utilize various archives to find sources. Ferster’s chapter on searching for information gave me more ideas for where I can find the sources I need, especially the list of very brief but very open descriptions of online archives (pp. 69-72), something I’ve been struggling to find since I came into graduate school.

Ferster, Bill. Interactive Visualization: Insight Through Inquiry, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2012.