Case: Building a digital memorial
Digitising the Arolsen Archives, one name at a time.
The #everynamecounts project aims to make the largest collection of documents on the victims and survivors of National Socialism accessible to everyone, worldwide. To help volunteers around the world digitise the documents we designed and built a new intuitive indexing tool. Every added name helps families searching for answers find traces of their relatives' fates.
The Arolsen Archives currently contains over 30 million records referencing the lives of 17.5 million individuals. The vast collection includes transport lists, prisoner registration cards and letters. Digitising these documents gives volunteers the opportunity to actively commemorate victims of Nazi persecution. Together, users are creating a digital memorial, one name at a time.
Arolsen wanted to significantly enhance the indexing experience for their volunteers. Their previous indexing tool, Zooniverse (the world’s largest platform for people-powered research), was limited in meeting the unique requirements of the #everynamecounts project.
We designed and built a highly flexible indexing tool that enables the Arolsen team to create custom workflows for each collection. The user friendly interface enables step-by-step transcription and provides helpful tips and contextual information about the documents.
Each document provides a glimpse into the life of an individual. To reflect this, we designed the indexing experience to put the names and stories of the victims and survivors at the forefront.
The clear, uncomplicated indexing process allows users to work at their own pace and focus on one topic at a time. Each workflow concludes with the document story – a chance for users to review and consider the new information they’re adding to an individuals path of persecution.
We designed the new indexing tool to be accessible for both first-time and one-time users, particularly in schools and educational settings, as well as a more universal audience. Help is provided each step of the way to guide users in how to correctly capture complex information like abbreviations or hard to read hand writing.
The new, simplified UI brings all of the key features of the indexing experience under one roof. We added a tab bar to group all of them in one place and make it easier for users to navigate the extensive functionalities. The tab bar shows the document metadata and information, FAQs and guides, and links out to the profile and new integrated user forum. We designed it to be adaptable for future features and scale with Arolsen’s needs.
We designed a bespoke backend system for the Arolsen Archives team. The Workflow Builder is a modular form editor, designed to help create indexing workflows intuitively. It includes multiple field types, from integers to radio fields. Workflows are fully customisable, adaptable and easy to use.
The indexing tool was launched in partnership with the global #everynamecounts Holocaust Remembrance campaign in January 2023. The goal: digitally transcribe 30,000 names in one week. Together with volunteers from around the world – including schools, the German parliament and police departments – over 70,000 names were collected. Doubling the target of the campaign sends a powerful message - but this global social justice action isn't quite finished.
Millions of documents still need transcribing so the names and fates of those persecuted may be found. Contribute to the digital memorial here, and follow the progress of the project here.
Team
- Jonathan Muth
- Christina Breuer
- Natalia Polikarpova
- Sophie Nickolai
- Tal Chodos
- Swetlana Dmitriev
- Macario Ortega
- Sev Furneaux
Deliverables
- User research
- Strategic development
- User experience design
- User interface design
- Backend development
The #everynamecounts indexing tool harnesses the best of technology to enable people around the world to stand up for respect, diversity, and democracy.