This past Wednesday we attended the Open Source North conference near Minneapolis.

The demographics of attendees were mainly people that worked as developers in the industry. It was very obvious by the audience participation in the talks that they were very knowledgeable about the topics being presented and genuinely wanted to learn a new skill in that area. I was impressed by the speakers who not only explained how to do something, but why you would want to. So although it was a conference that was geared for people in the industry, it would also appeal toward those in academics.

Choosing which speakers to go to was a challenge. There were seven total “tracks” so at any given slot seven talks were being given on a wide variety of topics. While some talks were more full than others, each one I attended as a decent amount of people each which attests to how they divided the talks well so there was something that interested everyone.

The highlight of the day was a shorter talk (just 25 minutes) that explained Pi-hole and how to implement it. Although it was short so the explanation was brief, the speaker provided a link to the slide notes so everyone could implement it on their own later. All the speakers I saw did an excellent job of providing follow-up materials or activities so the attendees could continue their learning of the subject.

Overall, I had a great time at the conference and would recommend it to anyone that either works in the industry, or are interested in learning more about it.

This term Alec and I have been working on an updated website for Carleton Guide to Medieval Rome. I have been working with some new development tools that I am excited to share. Balsamiq is an online tool to help design a wireframe for an application (and in my case a website). To get full access to the site requires a subscription, but then allows multiple contributors to the workspace. The wireframe lays out a general look of the site and the navigation. This was an excellent tool because it has many useful built-in images that represent common things that you would have in the site. Here is one sample page from the site’s wireframe:

In this single page, I was able to utilize a sample search bar, various buttons, a map, a page scroll, and other elements all within a sample web page window. Each of the tiny red arrows is a link to another sample page within the wireframe. Once completed, it allows the viewer to click and navigate throughout as if the site is completed. This is an excellent tool for developing the user interface of an application to make sure the flow of the site makes sense before coding it all. For more complex applications, using a tool like this to develop a wireframe would be necessary to prevent an incoherent user interface.

Some downsides to this tool are that it is hard to design features that are not previously included in the site. The lack of a drawing tool made it hard to have an organic shape that I wanted, but overall I recommend this tool.

Another tool is called Coolors that I used to create potential color schemes. It is a free online tool that is extremely user-friendly. A randomly generated color scheme is presented with every click that follows an algorithm to be aesthetically pleasing as a whole. If you like one or more particular colors but not the whole set, you can select to “lock” any of the colors. The locked colors stay for all the future color schemes generated unless you choose to unlock them. This is an excellent feature because then all the color scheme coordinate with those color that you have locked, so once you found colors you enjoy you can quickly create multiple potential schemes. Within a color, the range of lightness to darkness can be adjusted to find the perfect shade, or you can enter a custom hexadecimal color. Here is a sample that was incorporated into one of the design options:

Some critiques of this site are that there are exactly five colors to the theme, so if you want more than that makes it difficult. And while it does have a color blindness feature, it is not automatically turned on so you have to go into settings to change that. This would not be an issue in some instances, but if you are using it for web development like I am, that is something to look out for. Overall, this was an extremely helpful tool that was especially great because it was free. I would recommend to anyone that has an idea for a theme and just needs the exact names, or is searching for inspiration.

With these tools combined, I have been able to do a mockup of the homepage of the site:

I look forward to continuing this project and applying these tools to future projects.

I spent the majority of this term improving the customizability of an Omeka theme. It was interesting to learn more about how the themes work, and also fun to play around with different design ideas. At first, it was hard to understand how anything worked together. But once I learned more about it, I was able to do more design work.

The whole intern team also investigated MediaKron that is developed at Boston College. I enjoyed exploring a new technology that is used for similar things. MediaKron has a higher emphasis on quick set up for its audience in education. I utilized some of the layouts inspired by MediaKron.

I look forward to applying this newly-acquired knowledge on a Carleton project next term. I will be working closely with the back-end intern, Alec, as we hope to improve the functionality of the Rome study-abroad research site.

This past term I have been continuing my work with Omeka front-end design. I updated the Bootstrap 4 elements to the Omeka themes, so now it has the most current themes. I ran into issues first trying to customize the homepage because it was challenging understanding how all the files worked together. It seemed grim at times, but then there was a breakthrough! After a lot of time and tears, I was able to allow the user to select whether they wanted the sidebar on the left or right of the screen, and also if they didn’t want one at all. Now that option works with every color selection and other options.

The next goal of the project is to design, using HTML and PHP, various homepages so then the user will be able to select their favorite. This will create a more customized feel for each of the individual sites and their landing pages. Ideally, there will be thumbnails showing a preview of each of the options. I look forward to continuing this project and developing more knowledge of the languages.

Also this Winter, the interns have taken turns selecting articles to present to the rest of the team at the meetings. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading articles about latest technological breakthroughs or ethical concerns within the industry. Hearing the perspectives of the rest of the team has increased my critical thinking and overall interest in those topics. I am excited to continue this throughout the rest of the term.  

Steph Herbers ’20

This term has been a wonderful introduction to Digital Humanities. I enjoyed becoming more familiar with the various content management systems and exploring the advantages and disadvantages between them. As the front-end web developer, I started learning Bootstrap and PHP to be able to create customized themes for the sites. I loved learning these new languages and using them combined with HTML and CSS to modify themes in WordPress and Omeka. It was amazing to be able to apply the new knowledge right away into something that can be seen (and shown off).

World Usability Day was an incredible opportunity to experience the difference between an academic centered versus a more industry-focused conference. I loved the exposure to a variety of people and backgrounds, but all with a shared interest in thinking about the ethics in technology. One of my favorite talks at the conference discussed our “data exhaust” which she defined as the data that we are constantly creating, most of it subconsciously. While I was aware of some of the ways, such as cellphone location, she presented so many new ways in which that happened, and then presented the question: who owns this data? Overall, this term has been a great experience and I look forward to the rest of the year.