Location-Based Narrative: Welcome to Downtown Johnstown!

     For my narrative, I wanted to design an online "then-and-now" tour of Johnstown, featuring several of its famous landmarks. It is meant to resemble a feature that many museums now offer: an interactive addition to exhibits which gives small pieces of information about the display it's near. Combine that with a search for key words pertaining to another location and clickable links that take you to those locations, and Welcome to Downtown was born. Users start on a welcome page that has links to all of the pages hidden in the paragraph of text. When a user clicks on one of the words (for example, "shopping") they will be directed to the corresponding page (Glosser Brothers, which involves shopping). I kept the links only slightly lighter than the rest of the text because I wanted users to read for the information, and then notice the words they thought might stand out based on their own knowledge of the city. Each page includes a brief write-up of facts about the location, both what it was and what it is now. My hope is that users will see a glimpse of character and hope in a city plagued by drug use and economic downturns.
     This assignment was plagued by several difficulties over its development. For one, it was more difficult to find information on the locations in question than I had imagined it would be. Many of the locations don't have their own websites, and those that have one don't include much on the history of the business or service. Historical websites, such as JAHA, offer as much information as I may have included in my write-ups. This led me to want to explore the locations in person, in order to gain first hand knowledge. However, and much more unexpectedly than lack of information, I was hit with sudden serious illness near the beginning of this project. This left me bedridden and unable to concentrate or stay awake when attempting to research or put the project together. As previously mentioned, I had planned to visit at least a few of the locations in my project in order to get original photographs and firsthand knowledge, which would have made the project much longer and fleshed out in terms of information included. In the future, I would love to continue this search of my city, and put this location-based walkabout to the test.