A Journey of Federal Holiday
Concept Overview
An interactive storymap to help new immigrants to the U.S. to know about the tradition of federal holidays. The information may include the history story, time and observation. It can be shared with QR code or URL and embedded in an online magazine, website, or calendar APP. Ideally, it can be applied to a more immersive daily activity such as combining with calendar apps.
Need Statement
There is no doubt that the United States is a country with a large number of immigrants. According to the 2016 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, the United States admitted 1.18 million legal immigrants in 2016. Immigrants and their U.S.-born children now number approximately 89.4 million people, or 28 percent of the overall U.S. population, according to the 2018 Current Population Survey (CPS).
For the new immigrants, especially those who are from non-English speaking countries, it is frustrating for them to get familiar with a totally different cultural environment. They will receive a thick handbook from the U.S. government, which introduces very detailed but also complex information about how to start a new life in the U.S. To be honest, most of the immigrants learn these things from experienced people or taking lessons from mistakes made in authentic practice in the daily life.
That is why I want to design a guide resource presented in a more attractive and more user-friendly way. Both the topic and the display should be more situated so that new immigrants can get really useful and applicable information easily. In addition, they are expected to feel more welcomed and attached to the U.S. from the emotional level.
Concept Description
1. The topic of federal holiday is chosen for the reasons below:
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It is likely to be an attractive topic because people care about holiday. That’s the knowledge they need to grasp for planning social activities.
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As a sociocultural product of human consensus, there will definitely be different impressive stories behind.
2. There are two display modes of the storymap.
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Yesterday mode: each slide shows a history story of the holiday which happened in the place.
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Today mode: each slide shows how the people in the place observe the holiday nowadays.
Although they can only be presented separately in two files with the storymap tool, I assume they are switchable within one file (such as two different tags). In addition, users have the option to choose a blended mode, which makes the information from both modes presented at the same time. For example, when you are learning how to celebrate the coming Thanksgiving, there will be a “time capsule” button that you can click to see where is the origin of American Thanksgiving took place.
3. With calender
It will be more local and customized if the holiday storymap can be embedded in a digital calender. Users can click the date of the holiday in calender, then they can choose to explore the storymap to see the nearest holiday events or the stories shared by people in the same communities.
Target Audience
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New immigrants of the United States.
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Age: all the ages.
Learning Goals
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Remember the date of the Federal Holidays in the United States.
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Learn more about American culture and history.
Learning Theory
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Situated Learning:
Knowledge is both situated and developed through activity. Meaning of the world is inherited from the context of use. Learners should be exposed to the use of a domain’s conceptual tools in the authentic activity. -
Narrative Theory:
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Dual Coding Theory(visual design):
People build both verbal representational connection and visual representational connection with previous knowledge when receiving new information. There is also a referential connection is constructed between the two mental representations.
Design Process
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Decide on the federal holiday as the topic to cover.
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Search for the resource of federal holidays in the U.S. Write the narrative script.
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Organize the resource, then use Storymap to make a demo.
Potential Improvement
Ideally, there should be more details to adjust so that the holiday map can be more user-friendly to new immigrants from different countries.
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Support the version of user’s first language.
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More visual narrative than verbal narrative.
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Make connections with the same holiday or similar traditions in user’s original country.