The Architecture of Meaning  

It is the job of the information architect to discern the internal structure of content and than give it external form to support users in constructing meaning, in relating the content to their own knowledge, needs, and purposes, and thus making sense of the content.

Soergel, Dagobert. University of Maryland. Articles>Information Design>Rhetoric>User Centered Design

Chunking Content: Toward a Rhetoric of Objects  

We need to develop a rhetoric of objects to understand the new way in which we must create and deliver content over the Web. We are facing a new multiplicity of audiences—niche groups, and even individuals, to whom we offer customization and personalization. With our new tools and new ways of thinking about what we create, we are inventing informative objects that address the needs of our audiences, letting go of the concept of a document, as we plunge into a world of small chunks of content. In this presentation, I consider how this new approach to technical communication affects our ideas of audience, invention, arrangement, style, delivery, memory, and character—the canons of traditional rhetoric.

Price, Jonathan R. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Information Design>Web Design>Rhetoric

Coherence, Context, Relevance: Special Deliverable

There are a lot of things that make deliverables good: coherence, context and relevance hardly constitute a comprehensive list. But by focusing on techniques that achieve coherence, context and relevance, information architects can address the challenges of starting a document, focusing the document and explaining its value.

Brown, Dan. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Articles>Information Design>Rhetoric

Monitoring Order: Visual Desire, the Organization of Web Pages, and Teaching the Rules of Design  

Monitoring Order looks at two potential sources -- writings about book design and writings about visual arrangement in painting -- for helping teachers of writing think about teaching visual composition for Web pages; both sources are problematic but suggest directions for further study.

Wysocki, Anne Frances. Kairos (1998). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>Visual Rhetoric

Rethinking the Design of Presentation Slides

Summary, models, and templates of a new design of slides for technical presentations. This design is fully documented in Chapter 4 of The Craft of Scientific Presentations (Springer, 2003).

Alley, Michael. Penn State University (2004). Articles>Presentations>Information Design>Visual Rhetoric

The Rhetoric of Design: Implications for Corporate Intranets    

Sound structure and visual appeal are as important in attracting users to an intranet as the content itself because deliberate organizational and visual design allows users to navigate the site effectively and therefore helps users find the intranet a useful addition to their work flow rather than a burdensome one. In addition, by employing sound design principles, intranet developers will turn random facts filed away in databases or on servers into useful information, thus helping the intranet achieve its purpose as a medium for communicating and facilitating work processes in an organization. Unfortunately, design is an element that is sometimes overlooked in intranet development. To help developers better utilize design as an effective rhetorical tool in intranet development, this article examines issues such as creating form that is appropriate to function, determining audience needs and wants, and implementing structural and visual design principles. Intranet developers are often not professional comm

Jackson, Lisa Ann. Technical Communication Online (2000). Articles>Rhetoric>Information Design

What Technical Writers Can Learn from Christopher Alexander's Pattern Language

In a series of books, Christopher Alexander, an urban planner and architect, has inspired object-oriented programmers with his idea of a pattern language-originally, a catalog of solutions to common problems faced by any community or individual creating a livable structure such as a town or a house. His approach might also help technical communicators polish and perfect our own standard rhetorical structures (such as the procedure, user guide, or reference), viewed as common ways of answering frequent, if virtual, questions from our users . Alexander's way of describing age-old patterns such as neighborhoods, streets, paths, and homes may give us a model for creating our own set of patterns in technical communication, whether or not we adopt some of the eager elaborations offered by folks in the object-oriented design world. What's a pattern? For Alexander, a pattern is a practical guide to resolving any problem that occurs over and over, such as how to lay out common ground for a town square, or punch a hole in a wall for a door.

Price, Jonathan R. Communication Circle, The (2001). Articles>Information Design>Rhetoric

XML and the New Design Regime: Disputes Between Designers, Application Developers, Authors and Readers in Changing Technological Conditions and Perceptions of Social and Professional Need    

This study attempts to: (a) to specify a theory that explains the historical character of change or transition in the production of written artifacts, and (b) use that theory to cast light on a particular instance of change or transition in the production of written artifacts, that of the Web, principally, the issue of structured markup and discussions about precisely what a structured Web should look like, the work it should do, and so forth. It attempts to identify, describe, and analyze, are the norms and conventions that govern the production of written discourse.

Wilkes, Gilbert Vanburen IV. Journal of Computer Documentation (2002). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Rhetoric

Review: What Excellence Looks Like

Comments on the magnificent Envisioning Information by Edward R. Tufte.

West, Mike. MBWest.com (2006). Articles>Reviews>Visual Rhetoric>Information Design