PROFESSIONAL CRITIQUE
"AFTERMATH"

This multimedia package showcases the aftermath of hurricane Maria, which destroyed Puerto Rico along with other Caribbean Islands back in 2017. I found this display to be extremely powerful due to the manner in which the media appears to speak for itself. As you hover your mouse over the different icons of areas that need to be restored, a powerful video consumes the whole screen to show raw clips of what it looks like to have to rebuild a community after a natural disaster. This is such a powerful design element because it effectively transports viewers into this uncomfortable environment and sort of forces them to feel what the people of Puerto Rico are feeling as well. I also like the fact that the video/photo media takes up the screen because it conveys the feeling of not being able to escape the devastation that is consuming both the screen and the physical area of Puerto Rico. This element helps create a connection point between viewers and the victims of this hurricane, which in turn makes the media more powerful overall. One point of confusion for me was because the opening page was so captivating, I didn’t know you could click on the icons as well and they will take you to more pages. This could have been a huge problem because I could have missed out on so much valuable information if I was simply stuck only looking at the homepage. With that being said, once I found the other pages, it made the initial page even stronger because it takes you through the process of destruction. The different media types seen throughout the website compliment each other very well and create a nice balance between text, image, and video.

As far as the story goes, the landing page successfully tells a very clear and concise message while not using any supporting text/paragraphs. It takes a lot of skill to be able to get a specific point across to viewers without having any body text. The impactful statement made on the initial page sets the scene for the rest of the website. As I explored the rest of the pages, the story continued on very clearly and took viewers through the process of surviving a hurricane. Personally, the displays really evoked a lot of emotion because it showed how many essential needs the victims didn't have during this time. The content made me think to myself, “I could never imagine having to go through that, especially with small children”. Natural disasters are something that everyone hears about right when it hits, but no one really understands the longevity of the destruction and pain that victims have to go through. While a lot of the information is extremely valuable and important to the story, one critique I have is to do some editing across the various pages because I found them to be a bit long for my liking. Although many people will be interested enough in the topic to read through all the information, you risk losing some viewers with the length of each page. Overall, this multimedia package effectively used various design/media elements to successfully portray information and gave viewers accurate insight into how the people of Puerto Rico are slowly recovering from the aftermath of hurricane Maria.