A Chicago-native and World War II vet, Hunt first worked in advertising but lost interest in the field. Instead he became enchanted with a pop-up book from Czechoslovakia. He went on to design a pop-up ad for Wrigley’s gum, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Read more about Waldo Hunt’s life in his full obituary from the Los Angeles Times.

Today we tested our tests on two generous NU undergraduate students and got some very valuable information that will help us when we begin our actual testing next week.

The most and possibly best feedback we received was on the homepage design. We have been working on two versions of the page; one with a lot of different information all laid out for the user, and another version with the features and services dispersed into different categories, separated by tabs.

Our research team was pretty evenly split on which design would be best, and I think it’s safe to say that a few more rounds of user testing will solidify which version will be most optimum.

There are definitely some word choices we need to work on in an effort to make search criteria and subject headings more clear to the user. For instance, we think the word newspaper is clearer to a user than the word publication, when they are searching for an obituary or death notice from a particular newspaper or publication. (Have I said newspaper and publication too much?)

But perhaps most importantly, on Halloween Eve, we have decided that we must have plenty of candy to offer to our testing subjects as an incentive/thank you. And we need to make sure that Jake doesn’t eat it all during the testing.

I had the enviable task of compiling all of these interviews, hoping to make some inferences on the general public’s opinions of obituaries. Our sample of interviewees comprises men and women, between the ages of 21 and 42, residing in locations from New York to Boise.

One of the first questions on our list was, “When you think of an obituary, what comes to mind?” Not surprisingly, most responses sounded something like, “Death,” “Death” and “Death.” The older the interviewee was, the less likely they were to give such a straightforward answer.

Similarly, the younger a person was, the less likely they were to read obituaries on any kind of a regular basis. And why not? “The connotation of obituaries is so melancholic that it isn’t an emotion I want to tap into that often,” one responder answered. Since the start of this project, I have said that we need to let people know that obituaries are not just about death. Yes, death is the cause of the article, but it isn’t the content. (I believe this was also mentioned in Marilyn Johnson’s The Dead Beat, as well).

We got mixed reviews on our proposition to hire a professional journalist to write a loved one’s obituary. Some said “absolutely not” and others were quite keen on the idea. “It’s the quality of the writing that matters.” Anyone out there in blog land have an opinion on this idea?

There was also a wide range of answers to questions on advertising content. Several said that there shouldn’t be any advertising, which, I mean, come on. We all need to eat! Even the folks over at Legacy. Others just said to keep it tasteful, and suggested that a cigarette ad shouldn’t be on the memorial page of someone who died of lung cancer.

One of my favorite responses was to a question on what would be inappropriate on a site like Legacy.com. “Good time stuff,” one person said. She was adverse to the idea of memorial pages including adds for strip clubs, escort services and the like. I think we can all agree on that.

Personally I think advertising can be somewhat consoling in difficult times. Imagine the following scenario: You have just returned home from the funeral of a relative, such as an aunt or uncle. You’re rather bummed out and aren’t sure what to do next. You flip on the TV, and there is the talking baby E-Trade commercial. Always good for a laugh. Next comes a spot for Sonic, or some other local eatery. Now with your spirits slightly lifted, you and your other grieving relatives decide not to wallow in your sorrows and go have dinner together. With a meal in your stomach, (eating is not a grieving person’s first priority) you start to remember the funny stories about Uncle Jim, rather than just dwell on the sad fact of his death. But that’s just me…

I think we can all agree that we would like to steal emulate the Washington Post’s “Post Mortem” blog. The writers break down the most recent obituaries concisely, delivering the most interesting aspects of a person’s obit in easily digestible blog entries.

A post from a few days ago caught my eye, mainly because it had the word Publix in it. Anyone else who is from or has lived in Florida will know why my eyes got so excited.

The blog post was in reference to the obituary of Joe Slattery, the voice behind radio and TV commercials for Jewel grocery stores, in the Chicago Tribune. Slattery’s deep voice was what made him famous, and the WaPo blogger begged for a recording of his claim to fame.

She also asked for some photographs of arrangements designed by the late florist, Haruko Crawford.

Multimedia content, such as audio recordings and photos, has been a popular topic of conversation among our research group. As new journalists, trying to publish a story without additional multimedia content is basically unacceptable—so why shouldn’t that apply to obituaries, one of the most popular subjects at a paper?

Personally I can only see how short videos, photo slideshows, songs or other audio recordings might enhance an obituary, if done in a tasteful manner. However we have been getting mixed feedback on the idea as we have been conducting our research.

This specific blog post also included summaries of the obituaries of a Native American tribe elder famous for transforming canoe journeys, and a famous Hollywood stuntwoman. Seeing the sites or hearing the sounds of one of Frederick “Sonny” Woodruff Jr’s famous canoe trips, or watching old video clips of Jewell Jordan Mason perform stunts in movies that included “Wuthering Heights” and “Tarzan Escapes.”

However I’m not quite sure how to integrate multimedia or interactivity into the obit of David Lake, one of Washington states most renowned wine makers. Any suggestions?

I have known Dan since the seventh grade, and I don’t think a school day went by that he didn’t make some sort of movie reference to whatever it was that we happened to be studying—French grammar, U.S. history, the stock market in economics. You name it, Dan referenced it.

So it was no surprise that he brought up the film Citizen Kane when discussing obituaries.

“Citizen Kane is basically an obituary about this Charles Foster Kane character that’s lived and died, warts and all. That’s an interesting text to me and I would look for something similar in obituaries.”

For a while there at the beginning of the decade, the biopic was as prevalent in theaters as celebrity-dancing competitions are on television. The Aviator, Ray, Walk the Line, Ali, Kinsey, Cinderella Man and a slew of other biographical films all came out before 2005.

This research project has us thinking about what would attract a younger, more diverse audience to Legacy.com, and to obituaries in general. Are movies the answer?

The Aviator, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, opens with a young Howard Hughes being warned of germs by his mother, which we can assume leads to his obsession with germs and other compulsions. The audience also sees Hughes’ triumphs as a movie director and a man about town.

Jamie Foxx’s starring role as Ray Charles in the 2004 film, Ray, tells the story of the great musician, his fight against segregation and his battle with drug addiction.

Walk the Line follows a similar plot, chronicling the life of Johnny Cash, portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix, and the Oscar-winning performance of Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash.

There are always inconsistencies between real-life and the film version of a person’s history. However, these are three examples of well-received, popular obituaries, produced by Hollywood, instead of newspapers.

© 1941 RKO/Turner Entertainment, via Wikipedia