emily conrad

The groundbreaking effort to digitize all of JFK’s speeches, papers, images, video, has launched just in time to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the President’s inauguration. I was pleased to hear about this accomplishment yesterday, and even more pleased to be part of the design team (at ESI Design) that made it happen. Organizing the nation’s largest online digitized presidential archive has been one of the most exciting (and comprehensive) projects I’ve worked on recently. Here’s a passage from the press release:

“Until now, the national treasure of historical material housed in the Kennedy Presidential Library’s collection has been available only by a physical visit to the library itself. With the launch of the new digital archive at www.jfklibrary.org, students, teachers, researchers and members of the public now just need an internet connection to search, browse and retrieve original documents from the Kennedy Library’s collection, gaining a first-hand look into the life of President Kennedy and the issues that defined his administration. ”

From an Information Architecture standpoint, there were plenty of challenges to resolve in the design of the site. Most importantly though, we sought to make the Archive and all of the contents accessible to every type of visitor. Since the JFK Museum and Library attracts many students, scholars, and loyal enthusiasts, there was a strong need to offer the complete depth of archived material while organizing the artifacts into natural groupings.

What I find most important about this launch is the transparency that’s being offered. It feels like an unobstructed view into the Kennedy administration’s decision making process and the challenges they faced. It’s empowering to citizens to have access to this material because our current administration is faced with similar types of challenges. While putting the wireframes and documentation together, I gleaned an incredible amount of insight into that era, learning more than I had in any history class about the 60′s. Especially when I happened across the Cuban Missile Crisis documentation. There is something fascinating about the level of political detail one can find here. Nearly every single communication document, including memos with hand scrawled notes, is available for viewing. And it’s easy to become immersed by them. Particularly, there is a certain emotional charge found in the audio recordings. I love listening to them and imagining the circumstances of their urgency.

All in all, I think the site is very inspiring acts more as a window into the future than a retrospective of an Administration.

Visit the site at www.jfklibrary.org

There was an interesting thing I noticed while traveling home this holiday season. When we got off the plane at JFK Terminal 3, there was a café with long countertops filled with iPads. Upon closer look, I realized the iPad had the sole function of receiving the customers order. So I could sit down, tap on the screen to order my food, and wait a few minutes until the waiter arrived. On the downside, the iPad did nothing else. There was no way to close out of the menu screen and bump up my Cut the Rope score.

I did a quick number crunch to figure out the economic advantage if using an iPad as a dedicated kiosk. On the one hand there is the option of creating a traditional kiosk; hire a design firm to create the interaction and visual design of the menu software, spec out the hardware including cpu and touchscreen, a programmer to write the code, hire a fabricator to create the kiosk shell and wrap it. And then have the whole contraption installed. On the other hand there is the option of creating an iPad app, which could be done by one of many nimble design and technology companies cropping up these days (or a freelancer like me!), and a means to secure the device down. It seems clear that each menu station might be a few hundred or thousand dollars less than a traditional kiosk. And from a design POV, I would much prefer to create an experience on an iPad then have to work with a subpar CPU or touchscreen which often yields problems that involve screen resolution, processing delays, and a lot of debugging after installation.

But what’s really interesting here is not the technology itself, but the decision to have people order from directly their seats without having a server take their initial order. As far as service design is concerned, I can see this being a major advantage in crowded airports, and when customers want their food ASAP. They can belly up to the counter, tap in the order (instead of waiting for a server), and in a few minutes the order is out. It’s a good model for that environment. However, on the day we showed up, there were a lot of people crowded nearby, but very few people at the counters making it a bit of a wasted space. If people don’t want to order or eat, they were pushed off to the side to talk on their cellphones or pull out their laptops. It would have been great to use the iPad for all those other things we travelers like to do. I imagine that would make the space more useful and flexible.