Laura

October 22, 2001

For the second hypertext assignment, I propose to create a website, tentatively titled "A Traveler’s Diary." The text for the site will mainly be drawn from a diary that I kept during a two-week trip to Barcelona when I was 18. There will be images, as well, incorporated into the site, scanned from photographs that I took during my trip. I am still attempting to determine the navigational "options" for the reader, as they move through the site, but it is likely that I will offer at least three different "navigational choices." First will be to read through the diary much as one would read a normal book – from beginning to end. The second option will be to read through the diary as a series of choices, much as one can do in a hyperfiction document. For example, the second "page" of the diary might offer the reader a chance to "skip all this boring stuff about the train trip and get to the bars" as well as chances to "continue with the train into Paris" and "just skip to something more interesting and avoid all these descriptions about the rolling hills." The third navigational option that I am considering would be one that is based on the photographs, where the audience can choose to just view the pictures and small captions about each image, and therefore avoid having to read a lot of text. I am still experimenting with these options, though, and will refine the navigational options once some of the site has been coded and I have had time to analyze how the various themes are working out.

The website will be coded in HTML, likely using Microsoft’s FrontPage software program, with straight HTML coding being incorporated whenever necessary. Although I was frustrated in using FrontPage for my first hypertext document, I think I need to explore more of the options that the software offers, especially as I need to be proficient in its utilization for work.

The most basic purpose of this website, in terms of what it will offer to the reader, is a chance to read a diary (complete with all of the misspellings and drunken ramblings found in the original written version) of a trip that I took to Spain when I was younger. However, the reader will not be bound by the traditional, printed conventions of reading a diary in having to read forward in time with each new entry. Instead, the reader will be allowed (and probably even encouraged) to explore the diary as a "hyperfiction" and to read through it by following links that interest them and bypassing other areas that they find to be dull. Additionally, the reader will also be able to bypass the text of the diary and "travel along" by viewing pictures that I took on the trip, which will contain short captions.

The purpose for my decision to develop the site is more complicated. First, I want to explore different possibilities for navigation through websites, and to play with the idea of how the author of a site may "guide" the reader, through offering limited navigational options, and yet how the reader may choose to move through the site in different manners, each benefiting their own interests. I think that the ideas of navigation and movement through websites is one of the most fascinating aspects of the potentials of hypertextual documents, in that control is somewhat removed from the author and transitioned to the reader. At the same time, though, the author is the person who chooses where the links lead and what the reader will see when they follow the links. A second purpose for my decision to create this site is the fact that I need to improve my technical skills when it comes to website design, coding, and execution. I will need to learn to work more proficiently with my scanner and graphic editing programs, and with basic HTML codes, too.

There will be three different types of "content" for this site. First will be textual information, taken directly from my diary (which should be an entertaining challenge, as I have difficulty reading my handwriting in parts of the book, especially when the entries were made after an evening in the bars.) The text will be complete from the diary, down to misspellings, grammatical problems, moments when I attempted to write in Spanish, and so forth. The readers will be offered an option to "move" through the text of the diary, working just with text. The second "content" for this site will consist of photographs that I took while on the trip, which I will scan and then incorporate into the document. The reader will be able to move through the site just using the photographs and avoiding the diary entries, if they so choose. Finally, the third type of "content" for the site will consist of pages that incorporate text with "thumbnail" photographs (linked to larger versions of the images) so that the reader can read the text and see the images related to that text at the same time.

In reference to the textual information on the site, which will be taken from the diary, I am considering supplementing that text with more information, written from my current point of view. I may elaborate on something that I saw, or maybe include a recipe for something that I mentioned eating, or maybe link to an external site with more information about a particular museum that I visited. But the primary emphasis will be on the text from the diary.

As has been previously stated in this proposal, the proposed A Traveler’s Diary will be navigable through several different "paths." Sometimes these paths may cross, but I think it is likely, at least in my initial assessment of the project, that the paths will be individual. I am trying to decide if I want to have most of the navigational links occur within the text, or if I will have information somewhere else on the individual pages that will allow the reader to "move" through the document. I think that it is probable that I will eventually choose to utilize more than one "linking" option on each page (some in text links, some "button arrows," and some "home page" icons, too.) Once I have created most of the textual content for the site (basically transposing the written text into electronic format) and designed some initial pages I will have a much stronger sense of how I want to design the links. This will also be a technical challenge, as I am not certain of how to code "arrows" and other graphical representations into links.

I have not yet determined the document’s appearance and feeling. I do know that I do not care for sites that have plain black text on a white background, as I find that difficult to read. However, I also need to consider what is easily readable by others. I will likely use muted, light background colors, and dark text (such as a very pale blue background with navy blue text.) The text for the diary entries will be in a different font from the "supplemental" text that I am thinking about incorporating (perhaps serif vs. sans serif, or italics vs. regular.) However, this is still in the early stages of being tested.

I will use Microsoft’s FrontPage software for website design for the basic layout of the site. However, I will supplement that software with straight HTML coding using "notepad" to create items that I am unable to design in the primary software. I will use PaintShop Pro for editing my photographs and PowerPoint for design and manipulation of other graphical elements (likely using modified ClipArt.)

Because the foundation for the website will be created using Microsoft software, it is inevitable that the site will be best viewed using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser. However, I will test the site in the latest version of the Netscape Navigator to ensure that all links work properly and that the images and all other graphical elements display properly. Unfortunately, there will be some conflicts between the appearance of the site in the two browsers, but I will do my best to make sure that these differences are minimal and that the site functions properly in each.

In order to confront one of the greatest difficulties that I had in the creation of the last Hypertext project, which was proofreading what I had written, I have decided to create most of the text for this website in a word-processing program, most likely Word 97 or Word 2000. Once the text has been created, I will print it out and then edit it, before making the changes and cutting and pasting the text into the website software. This process will hopefully alleviate most of the proofreading errors that were readily apparent in the Laura’s Restaurant Recommendations website.