by: Kenneth Bossard
History.com's article, "9/11 Attacks - 102 Minutes That Changed America," returned first in my Google search for "interactive September 11." Easy to find indicates good search engine coding. Easy to load was my next expectation.
The article took seven seconds to load, yet kept me engaged with an almost immediate number roll from 1 to 102 minutes. The interactive map emerged in easily readable form. My eyes adapted to the grey buildings against the slightly darker, tan background.
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| History.com screenshot of 9/11 interactive article loaded on Sept., 12, 2011. |
The street-sign style building tags did not explain what I was viewing. I searched for the map caption.
I found it off screen by following the bottom title. It revealed the location tags would lead to videos of nine 9/11 witnesses. The lower caption area also provided links to two other interactive maps.
On rollover, the building captions still gave no description of the story each link would show. Rollover descriptive information appeared, I found, below the readable screen area.
The video took eight seconds to load. This time it seemed longer because the engaging screen was replaced by a spinning camcorder icon. Footage of the day, as experienced by the nine eyewitnesses, ran unfiltered.
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| Screenshot of video shot by eyewitness, Max Frankston, from his Soho apartment at history.com, Sept., 12, 2011 |
The forward and back arrows would be familiar to Kindle and other eBook readers. The top and bottom, one-line screen options lead to background information or other videos.
I did not know how the story would unfold from the initial screen. The beauty of this story was the rare first-person footage. That should have been prominently featured.
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