Evaluation of Function

Navigation

Due to the fact that the Material Culture of Plymouth Colony site is a branch of a larger, more comprehensive website, it is not surprising that the navigation is somewhat confusing. When opened, many of the links in the table of contents on the Material Culture introduction page do not provide links back to this source. Instead the links take the viewer back to the Archive Project's home page. While this is understandable given the structure of the overall site, it does confuse the navigation. It is always problematic when a site relies too heavily on the use of the web browser’s “back” or “previous page” button. This is a difficult problem to address due to the number of diverse topical sites that branch off of the Archive Project's home page. Many of the articles included in the Material Culture content page are also cited in various and distinct areas of the overall site. An example of this can be found in the Maps of New England and Plymouth link from the table of contents. Not only is the page excessively long, requiring prolonged scrolling (a constant problem with this site which shall be addressed more fully later) but once one has scrolled down to the bottom, there is no link back to the Material Culture contents. Instead it provides the links Return to Maps & Landscape of Plymouth, Return to Topical Articles on Plymouth, and Return to Plymouth Colony Archive. Since the links to each essay have a number of relevant crossovers with other pages within the Archive Project site, one solution to this problem would be a built-in “go back” link (the University of Toronto On-line Library Catalogue has this feature). This would provide an easy means by which the user could access previous pages without recourse to their browser’s back-button.

The length of the pages also confounds use and navigation. The site is full of academic essays that are of considerable length. An example of this is James Deetz and Edwin S. Dethlefsen’s article Death's Head, Cherub, Urn and Willow, written in 1967 and originally published in Natural History Vol. 76(3) 1967. There has been little effort to translate this article into a functional webpage. It is extremely long and the entire essay is contained within one web page instead of breaking it up among several traversable pages. Even the inclusion of a simple “return to top” link is absent. Other links within the page provide the unique opportunity to enlarge images of charts, sketches, and photographs (click here to view an example of one of the enlargements). However, if one chooses to do this, the image is merely blown up and appears outside the context of the essay (not unlike turning the pages of a book to see an image that is discussed sometime earlier). When one wants to return to the article, a link at the bottom of the page is provided. However, by selecting this the viewer will be taken back to the beginning of the article rather than back to the point at which they departed from it (the image link). This of course requires the person to rescroll down to where they left off, a lengthy and time-consuming effort considering there are three such links within this extensive article. This is just one of the many examples that can be cited in regards to this issues since this problem exists throughout the site.

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Searching the Archives

For those looking for specific information on the site, a “comprehensive, full-text search index of the Plymouth Colony Archive Project” is provided by Atomz search services, which is updated weekly. However, access to this search engine is not provided on every page and one is often forced to go searching for the link (on the other hand, it is accessible from the home page which is accessible on each page). The Atomz search engine is augmented by an alternative search engine, created by the Electronic Text Center, which allows for a more tailored search. However, this latter search engine does not cover any of the texts or articles listed on the New Additions menu page. The search engine provided by the Electronic Text Center allows for a compound search in addition to the advanced search option.

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Advantages for Material Culture

One of the great advantages of this medium for the study of material culture in general and this site in particular is its ability to contextualize artifacts in an effective way. Again, the article Death's Head, Cherub, Urn and Willow provides an excellent example of how the web offers a unique opportunity to convey the principle ideas of material culture. If one scrolls down through this article and selects the link Click to View Figure 3, one is taken to an enlargement of the chart of sketches by Lois A. Johnson which depicts the evolution of styles in a Plympton cemetery. The user can then select any of the sketches to see the photograph from which the sketch was drawn. This photograph is displayed alongside the chart with a clear marker of which sketch was selected by the user, demarcated by a red star on the style chart. This is accompanied by a text panel beneath the images, which discusses some of the variations in style and refers the viewer to other examples within the chart to provide direct comparisons with the artifact in question. Within the context of a book or journal, this approach would be less effective as well as less self-directed. A book or journal would probably provide only samples of this chart-photograph comparison whereas the website allows for the representation of each sketch and its corresponding photograph as well as its placement in the evolution of styles.

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Conclusion

There are some obvious problems with this site in terms of its functionality, including confusing navigation, lengthy pages and disorienting links. However, it provides some good examples of the advantages the web has to offer the field of material culture studies. The information it is able to provide can be far more comprehensive than that contained in the limited space of books or journals. Also, the ability to provide the viewer with an opportunity for self-directed exploration is unique to this medium. With some minor changes (some suggested throughout this review), the functionality of Material Culture of Plymouth Colony could be comparable to its content and structure, which is comprehensive and compelling.

All images and quotes were reproduced from the Plymouth Colony Archive website with the permission of Christopher Fennel (© 2000-2002 Copyright and All Rights Reserved by Patricia Scott Deetz, Christopher Fennell and J. Eric Deetz).