http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/Web-Design/Visual-Rhetoric A listing of the most recently indexed works about Design and Web Design and Visual 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/Visual-Rhetoric 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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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/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.