I am currently designing an interactive learning experience for the Dallas Police Museum using an archival interview with Detective Jim Leavelle as central primary source. Leavelle holds historical importance because he was one of the Dallas detectives directly involved in the investigation of President Kennedy’s assassination and was the detective who first spoke with Lee Harvey Oswald after Oswald’s arrest. At the time, presidential assassination was not yet a distinct federal crime, so state and local authorities were integral to the initial criminal investigation even as federal agencies became involved. Recent National Archives records releases have renewed public interest in the JFK assassination.

In this project, I am working as a learning experience designer creating an Articulate Storyline prototype from an archival interview. I chose Storyline because the learning experience depends on sequence, pacing and controlled disclosure to situate a consequential event in Dallas history within the professional frame of police work. I use visitor-paced disclosure to guide visitors to notice how each new detail changes the frame while staying inside Leavelle’s account.

The central design challenge is to design a learner flow that resists premature certainty and preserves the investigative conditions of Leavelle’s account. Rather than presenting the event from the vantage point of hindsight, this prototype begins with a case that has not yet widened into the history visitors already know. This design choice helps visitors experience how investigative judgment forms under conditions of incomplete knowledge, before the larger frame has become clear. The governing design constraint is epistemic responsibility to the source material. I wanted to resist premature compartmentalization of evidence, accounts and inferences because investigative judgment depends on holding possibilities in abeyance as long as possible. The design also explores police detective work in 1963: AM radios, payphones, limited computer access, no cell phones, no walkie-talkies for reporters and the reality that other people could monitor police communications. These details clarify communication practices, procedural rhythms and professional judgments shaping police work at the time.

As the project develops, I will refine pacing while preserving the uncertainty at the center of the experience.