After being introduced to Neatline for the first time, I'm not sure that I'd use the software tool in the future. It was a lot of work to accomplish some of the most simple tasks on Neatline. I had a lot of trouble navigating which tools to use and how to apply a feature. Also, it seemed like the screen continuously glitched any time I tried to zoom in or zoom out on the map. When I tried to apply a timeline for how long I lived in my house, I had to click on multiple different buttons in order for a timeline to appear. The timeline would not work unless I had an end date. I still live in the house, so it wouldn't have an end date. Also, the end date only worked if it was the same as the start date on the timeline. I think that this rendered the timeline feature useless because it only showed one dot on a timeline in June of 2007, when my parents and I moved into the house. Also, when I put a dot on the area of the map where I lived, it continued to bounce around on the screen when I zoomed out. When I zoomed back in, the dot was not where I had originally placed it. Another feature that didn't work for me was being able to click the dot on my house to see the description that I had written. Every time I tried to click on the dot, the description would glitch on the screen and then not show afterwards. While I can appreciate what Neatline is trying to do, I don't think I can work successfully with that technology on a project.
It is clear to me that gender plays a large role in Pachinko. Sunja has many social pressures that consume her life. Most of these social pressures are a result of her being female. For example, when she gets pregnant while being single, she is pressured to leave her life in Korea behind to find a man to marry and provide for her so that she is not judged by society. This demonstrates that society is not supporting women to live independent lives and/or pursue an education. The only expectations for women include being good mothers and good wives. Another example of gender roles playing a big role in Pachinko is women as part of the workforce. In Japan, it becomes apparent that women aren't encouraged to work. In fact, Yoseb takes it as a hit to his ego as a man when Sunja and Kyunghee tell him they wish to work. He is insulted because in Japan, a man is supposed to provide for women.
I had similar frustrations about Neatline. It was a cool tool, that really did help me visualize the events of Home Fire. That being said, it seemed a little poorly designed. The menus weren't very user-friendly, and zooming in and out of the map was painful because it would stutter frequently. The potential is there, but I don't know if I will personally be using it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the frustrations of navigating through Neatline. I think it offers a lot of great possibilities, but it will require a lot of effort to fully complete a project. However, I do think there are certain instances where Neatline can be a great asset and tool—it is just very specific to geographical projects.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Neatline is frustrating and difficult to use, but I'm hoping that my next research project will have more to do with dates and locations and will give me a chance to try the tool out. As much as I don't like it, if we are going to have to use it later down the road, it's probably better to practice now.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Neatline is very unintuitive. You can't search for things on the map or even directly access your own project without having to look for it manually. It seems like a good idea, but the execution could be much better.
ReplyDeleteI sympathize with these frustrations and think the tool has a learning curve that softens or eliminates some of these frustrations over time. Noah's plan to try it out for a future project is a good way of lowering that curve...
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