The DHM Website
Introduction
The disability history museum (DHM) is a website dedicated solely to showcasing or rather, providing a historical account of persons with disabilities in the United States; DHM also seeks to sensitize on the issue and awareness of people living with disability and the importance of recognizing such a community. The website aims at effecting a more profound comprehension of factors that influence people with disabilities; these are struggles such as, suffrage, civil rights, laws and policies, culture, among others. The visitor of the website gets to fully understand that these people are also part of the community and should be treated with equality, love and care.
The DHM Website
A significant issue that stood out after surveying the website is how much people living with disabilities are an integral part of the United States as well as the world. DHM provided a U.S. census tally in the year 2000, that quantitatively stated the number of persons with disability was 54 million. The U.N. also released its quantitative analysis of the same globally, which also had an alarming number of 650 million persons living with a disability. These numbers are not assumptions or exaggerated since the U.N., and the United States government are reliable and primary sources of information.
The website also presents long past histories of people with disabilities and antique arts and pictures taken in the ’80s showing thorough research and speciality, moreover, a genuine and passionate concern about these people. The hierarchical importance of these stories and articles since the ’80s is that it truly impacts the viewer with the unrecognized reality of the suffering of this community for ages.
Apart from the U.N. and U.S. quantitative analysis, the websites seem to draw its stories about people with disabilities or related articles from professional sources, thus being a bias-free website. For example, the story about the holocaust was published on the site by Mike Hudson, who’s top educational profile is an M.A. in History of Technology and is also a director in a printing company for the blind in the United States. Visitors on the website interact with this and other sources by merely clicking the link, and it reveals the document. However, the links do not take you to the original website with the original information; thus, it may create suspicion on articles, photos or sources that are not well referenced or cited.
The DHM website employs interpretation modules for the disabled such as letters, memoirs, cartoons, photos, chapbooks and cards. The most effective of these are photos and cards since all other non-blind disabled persons can use photos while brail cards can be used by the blind. These two options are not bulky, like books but are efficient for easy learning.
The website’s operational technology capacity is not advanced but is efficient, simply the website does not contain contemporary sophistication of website technology, but it is sufficient. A viewer is able to maneuver the website easily, although, a congestion of options and wordings is disturbing. The viewer is exposed to numerous information and headlines with links in one page, which may be exhausting to the mind on where to start. Also within a topic, there are more links therefore layers of information overlaying thus total congestion. This show there is a lack of update, maintenance or upgrade of the website.
On controversial subjects, the website objectifies its views in favour of how it reports it. The website boldly publicizes these controversial subjects, to create awareness to the public. These controversial subjects are such as information on social bias experienced by the disabled people in the U.S., thus exposing the system’s injustice.