http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/Web-Design/Rhetoric A listing of the most recently indexed works about Design and Web Design and Rhetoric in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/Web-Design/Rhetoric http://tc.eserver.org/34724.html http://tc.eserver.org/34724.html The credibility of web sites is becoming an increasingly important area to understand. To expand knowledge in this domain, we conducted an online study that investigated how different elements of Web sites affect people’s perception of credibility. Over 1400 people participated in this study, both from the U.S. and Europe, evaluating 51 different Web site elements. The data showed which elements boost and which elements hurt perceptions of Web credibility. Through analysis we found these elements fell into one of seven factors. In order of impact, the five types of elements that increased credibility perceptions were “real-world feel,” “ease of use,” “expertise,” “trustworthiness,” and “tailoring.” The two types of elements that hurt credibility were “commercial implications” and “amateurism.” This large-scale study lays the groundwork for further research into the elements that affect Web credibility. The results also suggest implications for designing credible Web sites. http://tc.eserver.org/34725.html http://tc.eserver.org/34725.html The issue of building trust with the audience is core to technical communication. If the user doesn’t trust your instruction, it’s worthless—no matter how well researched, thought out, and reviewed it is and how much time, effort, or problems it will save. http://tc.eserver.org/34663.html http://tc.eserver.org/34663.html User interface experts are often suspicious of the role of visual aesthetics in user interfaces—and of designers who insist that graphic emotive impact and careful attention to a site’s visual framework really contribute to measurable success. Underneath the arguments, I see a fundamental culture clash. http://tc.eserver.org/33228.html http://tc.eserver.org/33228.html Visual communication can be thought of as two intertwined parts: personality, or look and feel, and visual organization. The personality of a presentation is what provides the emotional impact —your instinctual response to what you see. Creating an appropriate personality requires the use of colors, type treatments, images, shapes, patterns, and more, to “say” the right thing to your audience. This article, however, focuses on the other side of the visual communication coin: visual organization. http://tc.eserver.org/32963.html http://tc.eserver.org/32963.html In order for a Web application to be "usable", it must be understandable. It needs to communicate, and communicate effectively. When a user interacts with a Web application they have only the visual presentation (the interface) to "tell" them what the application has to offer, and how they can make use of it. As a result, designers must rely on visual communication principles to tell our audience: about the behavior, structure, and purpose of our Web applications. The better at communicating we are, the easier it is for our audience to understand our messages and intentions, and the easier it is for them to use and appreciate our Web applications. http://tc.eserver.org/32718.html http://tc.eserver.org/32718.html As Web 2.0 style passes way, it’s time for something new. Few weeks ago we’ve written about the hand-drawing style in modern web-design. And as Web 2.0 style is all about glossy and shiny look, another option would be something rather crude, radical and provoking. Such as the grunge style — dirty look with irregular, nasty, sometimes even ugly and crooked visual elements. Will it establish itself as a trend? Probably not. However, it may be used once some creative and unconventional design approach is needed. http://tc.eserver.org/32332.html http://tc.eserver.org/32332.html This paper examines a large number of failed queries submitted to a web image search engine, including real users' search terms and written requests. The results show that failed image queries have a much higher specificity than successful queries because users often employ various refined types to specify their queries. The study explores the refined types further, and finds that failed queries consist of far more conceptual than perceptual refined types. The widely used content-based image retrieval technique, CBIR, can only deal with a small proportion of failed queries; hence, appropriate integration of concept-based techniques is desirable. Based on using the concepts of uniqueness and refinement for categorization, the study also provides a useful discussion on the gaps between image queries and retrieval techniques. The initial results enhance the understanding of failed queries and suggest possible ways to improve image retrieval systems. http://tc.eserver.org/32060.html http://tc.eserver.org/32060.html With the cost of quality traffic rising and reaching and maintaining top search engine position becoming more and more difficult as EVERYONE is moving to the net, viral content blows up one of the most spouted off cliche of all time… “NOTHING IS FREE”. The exposure and added traffic that an amazing piece of content can generate is free. That’s the beauty… with a truly viral piece of content, everyone else does your promotion for you, letting you sit back and enjoy the ride. http://tc.eserver.org/32055.html http://tc.eserver.org/32055.html Technology advancements have allowed for many improvements and enhancements in web design. Drastic changes have been made concerning programming, development, and available features. From flash animations, to blog pages, forums, and live chat, website designers have a multitude of design elements that can be added to their websites. Multimedia products such as audio, video, and podcasts are some of the other advancements in web design. One thing that has not changed, however, is the website readers. Successful website developers know and understand this concept, and apply it to every website that they design. http://tc.eserver.org/31605.html http://tc.eserver.org/31605.html Elements of persuasion are important to creating winning content. To help safeguard content from becoming manipulation, we need to understand its distinction from persuasion. As a step toward that understanding, this article: provides basic definitions of persuasion and manipulation; explores the key differences between them; and describes some consequences for UX content. http://tc.eserver.org/31509.html http://tc.eserver.org/31509.html When surfing the web these days, you often come across web sites that suffer from stagnation—they look old, obsolete or appear to have been designed by an amateur. Your web site needs continuous improvement to capture and engage your visitor’s attention. If not, he or she can easily click away to your competitor’s site. Here are twelve steps to help prevent stagnation. http://tc.eserver.org/31102.html http://tc.eserver.org/31102.html It is now possible to replicate Google Maps' functionality with open source software and produce high-quality mapping applications tailored to your design goals. Paul Smith shows how. http://tc.eserver.org/29831.html http://tc.eserver.org/29831.html Literacy has always been a material, multimedia construct but we only now are becoming aware of this multidimensionality and materiality because computer technologies have made it possible for many people to produce and publish multimedia presentations. http://tc.eserver.org/29799.html http://tc.eserver.org/29799.html The advent of internet technology has enabled the process of memorialization of those killed in US military conflicts to keep pace with the casualties themselves and, as such, has marked a shift in both the ideology of the war memorial as symbol and the ideology-driven media use of those symbols. This article argues that a process of increasing humanization and specificity enabled by the information architecture of the internet has led to a form of `war memorial', exemplified by www.facesofthefallen.org, that emphasizes decontexualized human loss at the expense of a coherent representation of a military nature for the loss itself. http://tc.eserver.org/29232.html http://tc.eserver.org/29232.html Professional communication scholars have defined the decorative narrowly and subordinated it to informational text. Yet, current psychological research indicates that decorative elements elicit emotion-laden reactions that may precede cognitive awareness and influence interpretation of images. We conceive the decorative in design, and specifically color, as a complex rhetorical phenomenon. Applying decorative and color theory and analyzing design examples illustrating aesthetic, ethical, and logical appeals, we present a range of potential uses for color in electronic media. http://tc.eserver.org/28391.html http://tc.eserver.org/28391.html Once you have your content, arranged it into a likely architecture, and worked out where it will sit on the page, you're ready to design the display layer. http://tc.eserver.org/28350.html http://tc.eserver.org/28350.html Every opening paragraph is the beginning of a delicate and transient relationship between reader and writer. This relationship begins quietly, usually without much fanfare--and if it's properly initiated, the reader doesn't even know it's happening. Yet the success of this relationship is an important factor in creating an enjoyable, engaging experience for the reader. This is especially true on the web where author credibility can be difficult to establish, and where, increasingly, readers have so many choices that separating the chaff from the wheat can be a daunting process. http://tc.eserver.org/28243.html http://tc.eserver.org/28243.html An About page should provide context and necessary facts, but should also give the reader compelling reasons to do what you want them to do. http://tc.eserver.org/27546.html http://tc.eserver.org/27546.html This study evaluated the effects of white space on visual search time. Participants were required to search for a target word on a web page with different levels of white space, measured by level of text density. Screens were formatted with one of four types of graphical manipulation, including: no graphics, contrast, borders and contrast with borders under two levels of overall density and three levels of local density. Results show that search times were longer with increased overall density but significant differences were not found between levels of local density. Only the use of contrast was found to be significant, resulting in an increase in search time. http://tc.eserver.org/27547.html http://tc.eserver.org/27547.html In this study, reading performance with four white space layouts was compared. Margins surrounding the text and leading (space between lines) were manipulated to generate the four white space conditions. Results show that the use of margins affected both reading speed and comprehension in that participants read the Margin text slower, but comprehended more than the No Margin text. Participants were also generally more satisfied with the text with margins. Leading was not shown to impact reading performance but did influence overall user preference. http://tc.eserver.org/26777.html http://tc.eserver.org/26777.html Effective web design, from the simplest brochure website to the most complex web application, needs to involve an understanding of context. While user-centered design focuses on user needs/tasks, and information architecture focuses on content, these two aspects alone offer an incomplete picture. What is missing is the context: the environment in which the website or web application is used as well as the market in which it exists. http://tc.eserver.org/26757.html http://tc.eserver.org/26757.html The home page is your first impression. And like the old saying goes, you only get one chance. So home pages themselves have a unique set of design goals. http://tc.eserver.org/26547.html http://tc.eserver.org/26547.html This class focuses on effective writing and design for online environments--with particular emphasis on the Web. While grounded in relevant theory, this course has a workshop format, with an emphasis on hands-on, collaborative learning. http://tc.eserver.org/25583.html http://tc.eserver.org/25583.html Native to the Internet and personal in approach, weblogs deliver bite-sized portions of information on a daily basis to an ever expanding audience. Weblogs are the conjunctions of the Internet: the ands, the buts the ors – they add to online conversations, refute them, or provide new perspectives altogether. http://tc.eserver.org/25490.html http://tc.eserver.org/25490.html Authenticity is something which must be constructed rather than simply accruing to verbal content, and visual and other design features are an inherent, but often overlooked, factor in this construction. http://tc.eserver.org/23927.html http://tc.eserver.org/23927.html En matière de visuels, même si la plupart des acquis des médias traditionnels restent valables, tels que les rapports sémiologiques entre le texte et l'image, certaines règles spécifiques devraient pouvoir s'appliquer à Internet. http://tc.eserver.org/23925.html http://tc.eserver.org/23925.html La difficulté de la lecture à l'écran et le fait que les internautes lisent en diagonale font qu'il est très important, sur Internet, de donner du relief visuel à l'information. http://tc.eserver.org/23930.html http://tc.eserver.org/23930.html Sur Internet, n'importe qui est en mesure d'éditer plus ou moins n'importe quoi. Dans certains secteurs, la crédibilité du contenu prend une importance particulièrement centrale. http://tc.eserver.org/23845.html http://tc.eserver.org/23845.html Visual designers working on the web need an understanding of the medium in which they work, so many have taken to code. Many have entered the usability lab. But what about the other side? Are developers and human factors professionals immersed in literature on gestalt and color theory? http://tc.eserver.org/23626.html http://tc.eserver.org/23626.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/23048.html http://tc.eserver.org/23048.html How do knowledge workers learn? How do they decide what to learn next? What motivates them to share? These questions are central to the challenges of knowledge management, and yet most corporate portals and online communities are designed in ignorance of their answers. http://tc.eserver.org/23045.html http://tc.eserver.org/23045.html Studies regarding how people evaluate a web site's credibility show the critical importance of information design and structure. Users trust sites that are well-designed and well-organized. Poor navigation is the key element that decreases earned web credibility. http://tc.eserver.org/22854.html http://tc.eserver.org/22854.html Principles of intertextuality guided an upper-level Professional Writing class at the University of Houston-Downtown when they created a World Wide Web page for a professional group in Houston. The project gave the page’s creators practical experience in approaching the text as process, accommodating readers' and writers' intermingling roles, and working with the constraints that intertextuality imposes on writers. The insights the page's creators gained can assist them as they serve as managers of their own career portfolios. http://tc.eserver.org/22685.html http://tc.eserver.org/22685.html Design is subjective: You can't please all of the people all of the time. http://tc.eserver.org/22480.html http://tc.eserver.org/22480.html Is your website easy for Maude to use? Or, for that matter, Tiffany or Raul? Here's how to sync up your website with your audience. http://tc.eserver.org/22043.html http://tc.eserver.org/22043.html What's the 'mission' of your site? This is the first and, perhaps, most important question to answer before you embark on developing your site. http://tc.eserver.org/21256.html http://tc.eserver.org/21256.html The World Wide Web presents information developers with the task of designing texts that will be accessed by multiple, global audiences. At the same time, Web technology presents developers with new design constraints. Therefore, Web text development warrants new design considerations. This paper presents an approach based on the rhetorical concept of ethos. Four visual design considerations—page grid, graphic files, icons, and text structure—are reviewed based on how decisions about each convey the ethos of the organization. http://tc.eserver.org/21053.html http://tc.eserver.org/21053.html The way a website presents itself to users is a key aspect of user experience. Effective websites don't interrupt user flow, which is guaranteed largely by posture (how the website uses available resources, particularly visual), and manner (how the website 'talks' to users). http://tc.eserver.org/20804.html http://tc.eserver.org/20804.html Communicators must know whether the audience consists of viewers, users or readers before selecting, writing and organizing content. http://tc.eserver.org/20561.html http://tc.eserver.org/20561.html Flash, by Macromedia, is a program designed to create graphics and interactivity for the World Wide Web. Its primary characteristics are moving text, sounds attached to that text and/or to navigational buttons, links, and mouseovers. Flash, for this reason, has been compared to television -- indeed, a web page generated in Flash often seems as if it would be equally at home on a stereo-surroundsound, high-definition TV. But there's a catch. . . . After going through the site a few times, the viewer might well discover that his or her choices are limited to those programmed into the site. But it's likely that the site's entertainment value -- as well as its multi-layered rhetorical messages -- will far outweigh any feelings of deception. . . which is, in itself, a monumental rhetorical statement. http://tc.eserver.org/20289.html http://tc.eserver.org/20289.html How is commercial Web site development informed by management decisions, marketing needs, business requirements, and consumer behavior and psychology (in short, the complex rhetorical situation surrounding commercial Web site development)? And how can the development process inform the formulation of a more effective Web commerce solution? I argue that the sense of community on the Web is the building block of retail Web commerce. I use a case study to show that using a communication process model can be an effective method of assessing market needs, business requirements, management decisions, and technology in the development of a retail Web solution. http://tc.eserver.org/19849.html http://tc.eserver.org/19849.html Electronic commerce promises to radically transform business. To remain competitive, businesses must address many issues before success can be realized. Key to the success of ecommerce will be the effectiveness of the web design interface interacting with consumers. Our user-centered case study, which received an STC Research Grant last July, evaluates consumer attitudes to the on-line shopping experience by observing this interaction. We measure the rhetorical power of design elements on an e-commerce site by using classical rhetoric as the theoretical framework for analyzing our results. This paper reports the preliminary findings of this research. http://tc.eserver.org/19198.html http://tc.eserver.org/19198.html This essay examines when and why a 'safe' approach to visual design for web pages is attractive to writers and writing teachers. It considers typical reasons for choosing a 'safe' approach to designing the visual dimensions of web pages, traditional sources in print graphics and writing for safe advice about visual design, and design challenges posed by issues of a web design's stability and navigation. The essay then turns to the fact that the additional media included in a web site bring more design traditions into consideration. It discusses the differing concerns and aims that issue from visual design traditions that focus on prose graphics versus those that focus on theatrical graphics. Keeping these differences in mind, the essay ends with a consideration of the forces shaping visual rhetoric on the web. http://tc.eserver.org/18920.html http://tc.eserver.org/18920.html Exposure to photographs prior to an interaction does seem to increase trusting behavior. http://tc.eserver.org/18451.html http://tc.eserver.org/18451.html How can you boost your web site's credibility? We have compiled 10 guidelines for building the credibility of a web site. These guidelines are based on three years of research that included over 4,500 people. http://tc.eserver.org/18418.html http://tc.eserver.org/18418.html In recent years, we have seen an explosion of medical and health-related information on the internet, and many patients cite the internet as their preferred source for information on their health and that of their families. However, there are concerns, voiced by healthcare professionals and patients alike, that this information is not uniformly accurate, complete, or up-to-date. http://tc.eserver.org/13222.html http://tc.eserver.org/13222.html In our attention to style and technology, we often overlook a vital element in the web design mix: narrative voice. http://tc.eserver.org/12983.html http://tc.eserver.org/12983.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/10411.html http://tc.eserver.org/10411.html These guidelines are intended to assist Web designers, authors, and editors in their efforts to create Web pages that effectively reveal—rather than obscure or confuse—the information they are trying to present. These guidelines are also intended to be used to assist in the evaluation of existing Web sites. Of course, the design of a Web site can, to some degree, be modified by the user or by the characteristics of the browser or monitor enlisted to display it. The guidelines, consequently, acknowledge that in a very real sense, users may also assume the role of designer. The guidelines, therefore, are also intended to help users make informed decisions about how to make a display easier to use. http://tc.eserver.org/10285.html http://tc.eserver.org/10285.html When considering the design of information and information structures, the focus tends to gravitate to general issues of content, information hierarchies, and in some instances, system usability. In discussions concerning system usability and human factors, the issue of the user experience, or overall aesthetic experience, with regard to a specific information structure is rarely addressed. Things such as the 'look and feel' of a website, for example, may get some attention by the designers and developers of the information structure, but the idea of 'look and feel' is essentially an issue of how to 'decorate' the information. Too often, when software developers or usability engineers discuss 'look and feel,' they do not consider it to be an integral part of the information design structure but an additive element applied only after the structure and content of the information have been resolved. What seems to be lacking in information design is a concern for the visual composition of information. http://tc.eserver.org/10128.html http://tc.eserver.org/10128.html Today communicating is not always about a single message but an entire experience. One of the reasons the Web and the Internet has gained in popularity is not only because of its commercialization but because users can dynamically interact with it. Walker Gibson uses the term 'mock reader' to describe when a reader accepts the role within a story that an author has presented. The authors of Web sites, the designers, create an experience that immerses the site visitor or viewer into the Web site. A successful Web site designer has the ability to create a 'mock Web visitor' who becomes completely immersed emotionally in the site the designer has created.