“Rhetorical Web Design: Thinking Critically about Ready-Made Web Templates and the Problem of Ease”

by Jason Tham | Xchanges 12.1

Recommendations & Conclusion

If the template is a rhetorically designed space, if “easy and efficient” development encourages the split between the user and the developer/designer, and if the user does not have the agency and techne to control his or her own designs, then how can the user be empowered when it comes to web development and web design? If we don’t want users to become products of the templates, there are several ways we can cultivate a sense of rhetorical awareness in them, especially novice users.

One avenue is to encourage collaboration between veteran developers and web design critics and reiterate that what we design are interfaces and interfaces mediate information dispersal, argument, and identity construction. The web development and design community must be aware of user needs and user goals before flooding them with ready-made templates and code libraries for ease and efficiency’s sake. As coding cafes and meet-ups have become more popular, they can be avenues for scholars and practitioners to share their insights with novice users in a more informal approach. The scholar-practitioner collaboration could also serve novice web designers by creating and maintaining code libraries that are not only accessible and adaptable, but also bundled with informative materials that educate users on the rhetorical functions of the items within the library.

We must also acknowledge there is a power imbalance between expert developers and everyday web users. To neutralize the tensions, those with the expertise and experience should take the lead in creating common grounds for all to interact and learn to program. This doesn’t mean dumbing or watering down the knowledge of the invention process for novice developers and designers — but instead guiding and helping beginners to achieve expertise through active collaborations and partnerships.

For composition and technical communication specialists, the writing classroom serves as an important springboard for students to get an early exposure to critical and rhetorical sensibilities in web writing and design communication (Karper, 2005; Richards & David, 2005). Courses such as rhetorical web design, visual rhetoric, and writing with digital technologies could help students to dive deeper into the impacts of design practices on authorship, message delivery, and overall visual communicative ethics. Many programs today also offer courses co-taught by computer science, design, and writing/rhetoric faculty members to address and examine the relationships between the technical and the rhetorical in communication.

Finally, as a field, we must reconsider the validation of ease. Lindsley posited that ease should remain an illegitimate rhetorical justification for how to compose and design situated communication for as long as the discipline of rhetoric and associated fields exist. He argues that ease is rarely justifiable in user-centered development. As such, teaching users to analyze specific audiences and rhetorical situations in the design of websites — in short, rhetorical web design — should be the goal of web design and development education.