Image credit: The Race and Oral History Project & Cristela Garcia-Spitz

The Race & Oral History Project

The Race and Oral History Project (ROHP) is a collaborative initiative developed by UC San Diego Professors Yen Le Espiritu, Luis Alvarez, and Simeon Man. The project brings together various stakeholders, including UC San Diego students, faculty, librarians, and community-based grassroots organizations.

Responsibilities

Tools

Team

Time Frame

UX Research

Journey Mapping

User Personas

UI/UX Design

Information Architecture

Oral History Transcription

Digital Archiving

UX Research

Journey Mapping

User Personas

UI/UX Design

Information Architecture

Oral History Transcription

Digital Archiving

Figma

Photoshop

WordPress

Canva

Zoom

Figma

Photoshop

WordPress

Canva

Zoom

Dr. Yen Le Espiritu

Dr. Luis Alvarez

Dr. Simeon Man

Cristela Garcia-Spitz

Alanna Aiko Moore

Dr. Yen Le Espiritu

Dr. Luis Alvarez

Dr. Simeon Man

Cristela Garcia-Spitz

Alanna Aiko Moore

Dr. Yen Le Espiritu

Dr. Luis Alvarez

Dr. Simeon Man

Cristela Garcia-Spitz

Alanna Aiko Moore

14 months

June 2020-Sept 2021

14 months

June 2020-Sept 2021

14 months

June 2020-Sept 2021

UX Research

Journey Mapping

User Personas

UI/UX Design

Information Architecture

Oral History Transcription

Digital Archiving

Figma

Photoshop

WordPress

Canva

Zoom

Context and Background

The primary objective of the ROHP is to address the historical underrepresentation of traditionally marginalized racial and ethnic communities in San Diego. These communities have often been overlooked in history books and traditional educational curricula. As a result, their voices, lived realities, and narratives have been largely absent from mainstream historical accounts.

The ROHP serves as an avenue for community empowerment and engagement. By amplifying the voices of marginalized groups, the project seeks to preserve the histories of these communities. Overall, the ROHP provides a vital platform for traditionally marginalized communities in San Diego to reclaim their narratives, contribute to historical documentation, and have their voices heard.

The project not only aims to create a repository of oral histories but also to facilitate dialogue, foster connections, and inspire social change. It is a collaborative effort that seeks to empower and bring visibility to these communities, ultimately fostering a more inclusive and diverse understanding of San Diego's history.

The Race and Oral History Course

Students can participate in the Race and Oral History Project through a course at UC San Diego where students collaborate and volunteer with community organizations across San Diego and beyond, to produce oral histories, and to ultimately create a connection between UC San Diego students and racial and ethnic communities in San Diego.

The Race and Oral History Course

The Challenge

The team had an existing website with a plethora of oral histories from previous cohorts, some of which were missing transcriptions, audio files, or were never published to the site. In addition to this, the website in general did not have a clear hierarchy of information. This platform is a central component of the one of the The Race and Oral History course at UCSD yet students expressed confusion navigating the site to find the information needed to prepare, conduct, and post their oral history projects.

Overall, the main objective was to create a website that conveys the goal of documenting the lived realities of marginalized communities in San Diego. In addition to this, I needed to redesign the ROHP website for Professors and students to be able to efficiently use the website to document their oral history interviews and profiles of community members.

My work aimed to make the website an efficient point of reference for the teaching team (Professors, librarians, and TAs) to use when teaching students how to properly conduct and document oral histories.

In order to accomplish this I needed to organize existing content and re-design the website to be more user friendly, implement changes for students to readily access information needed for the course, and create project related content if needed.

My Role

My Role within the ROHP began with me as a student in the class where I volunteered with the American Friends Service Committee. I interviewed a local artist Gloria Favela Rocha who was working on a mural at Chicano Park in San Diego, California that commemorates Anastasio Hernandez Rojas and denounces the injustices and violence at the border (and beyond) that continue to affect the immigrant community.

After the course, I continued my work with the Race and Oral History project as a website design intern, and finally as a Digital Productions Assistant.

My Role

After the course, I continued my work with the Race and Oral History project as a website design intern, and finally as a Digital Productions Assistant.

Anastasio Hernandez Rojas Mural Image credit: Alliance San Diego

By reflecting on my experience with the course in a remote academic setting and in hearing my classmates navigate technical challenges and changes to the course format given the COVID-19 pandemic, I myself had already experienced and was knowledgeable of the types of obstacles students encountered on the website. Using my experiences, interactions with classmates and TAs, and observations as a student in the course I was better able to identify different types of users/visitors of the website as a designer.

I implemented changes to the ROHP website in preparation for the teaching team and upcoming Race and Oral History class. There were some changes I had to implement immediately as the class is only taught once a year and other changes on the website could be implemented at a later time.

There were some changes I implemented before and in preparation for the ROHP course:

Developed course related content and tutorials for students and TAs

Created digital graphics to be used on the website

Archived oral histories and categorized them by central themes and tags

Restructured site navigation and existing content using categories and labels for specific oral histories

Transcribed missing oral histories from previous classes

Research and Design Process

Research and Design
Process

I began the research process before the course began using existing information, data, and analytics at hand, but the research process carried through after the course began in the Spring quarter as well.

I Identified the primary, secondary, and tertiary stakeholders of the Race and Oral History Project and created a user journey map for students, TAs/Professors, and community members who may use the website.

Created user persona profiles of current, past, and future students of the ROHP.

Seeing as the website is most often used as a tool for students to publish and share their oral histories, for community members to listen to oral histories, and for visitors to learn more about the project I had to ensure the website could cater to multiple user demographics.

Utilized website analytics to track user traffic and patterns on the website to identify what areas of site were most visited and helpful for students.

I created a course survey and conducted user interviews to identify areas of improvement for site navigation and ease of use for students.

Created user persona profiles of current, past, and future students of the ROHP.

Seeing as the website is most often used as a tool for students to publish and share their oral histories, for community members to listen to oral histories, and for visitors to learn more about the project I had to ensure the website could cater to multiple user demographics.

Utilized website analytics to track user traffic and patterns on the website to identify what areas of site were most visited and helpful for students.

I created a course survey and conducted user interviews to identify areas of improvement for site navigation and ease of use for students.

Research Findings

Post interviews, user journey map, persona profiles, and course survey/user interviews

Website navigation: User interviews showed that navigation was confusing to use, participants expressed that there should be a clearer section for students and tutorials
Homepage: Professors and students expressed that the website’s homepage contained an excessive amount of text and failed to capture the essence of the Race and Oral History Project community. They emphasized the need for images to better convey the spirit of the project.
Oral History Courses: Students expressed confusion finding course tutorials and even after conducting oral history interviews, students required help from TAs on how to properly transcribe and post their oral histories on WordPress.

Post interviews, user journey map, persona profiles, and course survey/user interviews

Website navigation: User interviews showed that navigation was confusing to use, participants expressed that there should be a clearer section for students and tutorials
Homepage: Professors and students expressed that the website’s homepage contained an excessive amount of text and failed to capture the essence of the Race and Oral History Project community. They emphasized the need for images to better convey the spirit of the project.
Oral History Courses: Students expressed confusion finding course tutorials and even after conducting oral history interviews, students required help from TAs on how to properly transcribe and post their oral histories on WordPress.

Design

Website Navigation

I restructured the website navigation to distinguish an Oral Histories section by themes, Community Partners section highlighting all organizations the ROHP has worked with, and a course section for students.

Website Navigation

The website navigation menu is now more streamlined and features an oral history, community partners, and course section. The dedicated course section for students help them visually identify what section of the website they can find course related materials such as tutorials, oral history help, and course instructions and examples.

Homepage

I worked with professors of the course to streamline information and content on the homepage. I also created a rotating background with three selected images for the homepage, these images rotate when the page is refreshed.

Old ROHP website homepage

Re-design of ROHP Homepage with 3 rotating backgrounds

By reducing the amount of text on the homepage and incorporating more images, the website has become more visually appealing and engaging. The website itself also contains more images and an oral history gallery that showcases the diversity of the community and conveys a sense of community building. The alternating header images featuring the US-Mexico Border further emphasize the project’s goal to bring different ethnic and racial communities together amidst the colonization of spaces, places, and stories of these folks.

Course tutorials

In the course section, students can select to view past syllabi, assignment examples, course instructions, a checklist for completing all necessary components of the course, and an oral history workshop for best practices and transcription help.

Impact

Streamlining the website navigation menu and creating a dedicated section for current students and TAs with course tutorials has resulted in improved usability and organization. When professors are planning for the ROHP course, the website is the main point of reference for potential community partners to view the direct impact of the project and for students to understand what the course entails.

Versatility for website users: Professors, Librarians, and TAs can now direct community partners and students to a well-structured and easily navigable website. This facilitates efficient access to relevant resources for community partners and student of the course.

Reflection

This project was near and dear to me as I was born and raised in City Heights San Diego, California, an ethnically and culturally diverse community. I greatly value the wisdom, education, and community that oral histories bring to the world as I myself grew up listening to oral histories of my family in Mexico. The Race and Oral History Project continues to flourish as a course at UC San Diego and provides a digital platform for diverse communities to share their knowledge and lived experiences with the world. I am grateful to have been a part of this project and am happy to see it flourish year after year.

I gained experience with WordPress, Figma, website design, digital humanities, and the design process being able to work with a community of professors and Librarians. In addition to this, I strengthened my experience with user research, research methods, designing for diverse communities, oral history transcription, and digital humanities.

Ultimately, I am proud of my involvement and contributions to this project as they help make oral histories more accessible to the San Diego community and beyond which ultimately aids in decolonizing history, creating a space, and making the voices and lived realities of racial and ethnic communities be more widely acknowledged.

Let's get in touch!

Cristabelotero@gmail.com

Let's get in touch!

Cristabelotero@gmail.com