Mapping Out the Web Doc - Wes

While everyone else is working out their scenes and cutting them into rough cuts, I'm trying to figure out the structure of my webdoc. Earlier, I'd chosen five different user paths through the experience. With thematic paths, I can start dealing out parts of individual elements to paths, including parts of interviews already done and soon to be done.

We start to construct a tree

•  Looking back
• Edwin Hill (historian)
• Jerry Cook (river resident)
• Peter Rachleff (historian)
• Jessica Bierbrierer (museum staff)
• Mike Mosedale (fisherman) (scheduled)
• Hokan Miller (tugboat pilot) (scheduled)
• Mark Peterson (historian & mayor) (scheduled)
• Prairie Island Indian Community Residents (tribal elders) (hopeful)
• The Journey of the Dotty
• Building the shantyboat
• On the Mississippi
• Living in the shantyboat
• Production
• Danger!
• Exhibitions
• The River's Story & The Future River
• Pat Nunnally (river scholar)
• John Sullivan (water quality enforcer)
• Ken Lubinski (ecologist)
• John Anfinson (park ranger) (scheduled)
• Mike Mosedale (fisherman) (scheduled)
• Hokan Miller (tugboat pilot) (scheduled)
• Shanai Matteson (river artist) (scheduled)
• Ed Lagace (river ranger) (scheduled)
• Toua Xiong (bait shop owner, fisherman) (hopeful)
• Prairie Island Indian Community Residents (tribal elders) (hopeful)
• River Journeys
• Lauren Donovan (kayaker)
• Billy Curmano (swimmer)
• Gerty Tonjum (punk boater)
• The Dotty (how to link this to the path above?)
• Robnoxious (punk boater) (scheduled)
• People Who Live on the River
• Jerry Cook (river resident)
• Ed Hoffman (houseboat resident)
• Kali Arline (boathouse resident)
• Anna Mae Davis (boathouse resident)
• Gerty Tonjum (boathouse resident)
• Alex Stevens (river resident) (hopeful)
• Richie Swanson (boathouse resident) (boathouse resident)
• Louise Eggers Prondzinski (river resident) (hopeful)
• Working on the River (future)
• James Brunkow (sawmill worker) (scheduled)
• Mike Mosedale (fisherman) (scheduled)
• Hokan Miller (tugboat pilot) (scheduled)
• John Sullivan (water quality enforcer)
• Ken Lubinski (ecologist)
• Toua Xiong (bait shop owner, fisherman) (hopeful)

 Playing with my index cards form last week, there are a few things I've learned/decided:

• Metaphor: The site metaphor is of a river branching with tributaries and braided like a delta
• Nav Feels: Navigating the site should feel immersive and like a walk among paths (or a drift among multiple branching streams)
• Nav Style: The navigation should flow like a river some of the time and give choices which way to go at others. A one-page vertical or horizontal page design seems to offer this.

Looking at features of the site, some of which would serve as the interstitial transitional pieces between featured video were:

• Full-width video loops
• Lightbox (popover) video
• Still photos, especially with ambient sound
• Interactive maps
• Image sliders
• Musical score
• #LiveTweets and Integrated Facebook Comments
• Still photos with parallax effect
• Conditional overlays

I received a lot of suggestions from Irene Lusztig that I will share in a later post.