Personas - DIGH 501, Week 4

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Draft 2-3 Personas that represent the intended audiences for your project.

Brief reasoning for the names:

Mateo means Matthew and Flores means Flowers, both extremely significant to the Wordsworth narrative. Wordsworth's male mentor was named Matthew and the poet described their relationship as one of mutual understanding and trust despite the distinct age difference. :leaves:

Evelyn means Hazelnut (self explanatory here) and Peters represents Beatrix Potter's close knit connection to the Lake District. Beatrix Potter essentially reinstated the Lake District's native population of Herdwick sheep "and became the first elected female President of the Herdwick Sheep Breeders’ Association in 1943" (source). :sheep:

Lucy is a significant character in the Wordsworth universe; frequently written into poems on Spring and innocence, Wordsworth casts Lucy as the ideal being whose life is cut down before experience creeps in. A Hangle is a hook from which a stew pot or roasting spit is hung in a fireplace. This has no particular Wordsworth significance, it just reminded me of the frugal Dame keeping watch from the cottage-threshold. :chestnut:

[taylorcate]

Mateo Flores — Independent Scholar

This persona is directly inspired by a real scenario. Check out Issue #12 for more info on the project's international engagement.

Mateo is a 32 year old independent scholar from Argentina whose primary research interests lie in digital preservation. He spends his day cataloging archival materials in an online database and researching new methods for digital presentation. With limited funding and his institution's fear of open-source, knowledge sharing working against him, Mateo accesses public spaces online for inspiration and new models to follow for his projects. Doing this kind of humanities work in a relatively remote part of the world often makes Mateo feel as though he is DH adjacent and not flush with the innovations of the field.

In his research, Mateo comes across a post on Instagram linked to a project similar to his with the #dh and #digitalhumanities hashtags. He decides to submit a query to the editor of the project for more information via the email address provided in the public repository and, later, through direct messaging on Instagram. Once alerted to the inquiry, the editor of the project replies to Mateo and asks if he would mind conducting the conversation in a public space: i.e. the project Issues board. He agrees, but must proceed with caution for fear of releasing sensitive information about ongoing projects he's involved in. They begin speaking regularly and exchange ideas about how to represent complex textual works in digital spaces. Mateo, then, incorporates elements of their conversation into the methodologies for his projects, and vice versa. Through continued, virtual collaboration, each party impacts the vocabularies and methodologies of the other.

[taylorcate]

Evelyn Peters — Middle School Student

Evelyn is a 14 year old student with a particular interest in YA literature and graphic narratives. Evelyn's classroom experience has taken a digital turn in the last couple of years as parents put the pinch on the school's administration. Evelyn's exposure to the deeply digital has changed the way she engages with her course material; she is no longer captivated by tattered textbooks and loose-leaf paper. In a classroom already overwhelmed by student cell phones and laptops, teachers choose to work with the technology instead of against it. This has had a lasting impact on the pedagogical methodologies these students respond to. Using the tablet distributed to her at the beginning of the year, Evelyn engages with interactive, digital spaces on a daily basis as a means to supplement her academic experience. Being the fluent, digital native that she is, Evelyn shares her tech-savvy skills with her parents as they tackle assignments and access course materials online at home.

In her free time, Evelyn enjoys bringing her tablet and phone outside to read, play games, and listen to music. A frequent watcher of vlogs, Evelyn enjoys learning about people's experiences in other countries. She perceives few barriers to connecting with individuals in digital spaces—commenting and frequently liking others' Instagram posts, YouTube videos, Facebook updates etc. Evelyn and her IRL friends often scroll through their various feeds together and share content by passing their devices around. In addition to her IRL friends, Evelyn considers herself a member of many online communities. She enjoys watching Twitch streams, reading Reddit fan-pages for her favorite books, and connecting with people through retweets and mentions on Twitter.

[taylorcate]

Lucy Hangle — College Professor

Lucy is a 34 year old, tenure-track, English professor at a small liberal arts university in the U.S. Lucy's research interests include poetry of the Romantic and Modern eras, Textual Studies, and Digital Humanities. Lucy is frequently researching new ways of engaging her students through digital applications in the classroom and through online forums and wikis outside of the classroom. Fighting her undergraduates' aversion to consuming anything that isn't scrollable, Lucy often assigns readings and activities online that have interactive components: for instance, when teaching William Blake, Lucy asks her students to "visit" the William Blake Archive and view the facsimile images of the poet's illuminated texts. Lucy also assigns MOOCS and other public, scholarly videos on platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo. Rather than fight her students' desire to have laptops open and engaged during class, Lucy finds ways to enrich the students' interactions with their devices and with each other by bringing the course content to the screen.

When she returns home, Lucy's role shifts from teacher to nurturer. A mother of two young boys, Lucy rarely finds time at home to read up on or connect with content related to her own research interests. She often wishes there was some way to share her love of poetry with her boys in a way that engages them beyond simply reading the poems aloud.