Prewriting Activities

Prewriting activities featuring practice analysis of sites are crucial for this assignment. Following are three sample worksheets which first invite students to explore a site and then prompt them to consider the rhetorical value of specific design choices. Students may complete the worksheets on their own and then share insights in class discussion. It is particularly helpful to require students to design their own worksheet for the site they have chosen to evaluate, and to then require students to complete each other's worksheets. Since sites are continually updated, the instructor needs to change the content of such exercises accordingly.

www.audience: Close-reading a Web Site to Develop a User Profile

1. Visit www.hooters.com and play two holes of 3-D golf. What words of encouragement are offered on the banner above each hole as you play? Who offers them? Why isn't the player addressed as "Lady?" "Dude?" "Man?" "Killer?"

2. Survey the "Hooters Girls" presented in the official online version of Hooters Magazine. What is the ratio of blondes to brunettes? What is the ratio of Caucasian women to women of color? Is there any difference in the visual presentation of these two groups?

3. Review "Hooters Quick Facts." Who are Hooters customers? Why has this information been included here?

4. What is the Hooters slogan, featured on the bottom of the home page?

5. Survey the Hooters menu and name four things that each of the specialty items has in common. How are the items presented to view?

6. What familiar symbol appears below the START SHOPPING link on the shopping page? What visual pun have the designers made on "HootersGear"?

7. Describe the background used for the homepage. Name three associations that the pattern you see is likely to call forth in the minds of targeted users.

8. Why has a white background been chosen to display Hooters Gear? Why not orange? Yellow? Lavender?

9. Defend the selection of blue for the menu bar that appears on the products page. Why not an orange menu bar here? Neon green? Black?

10. Visit Hooters of Hawaii and describe the motion of the American flag you see represented on the homepage. Why is this version of the flag preferable to a two-dimensional, stationary version?

11. What shapes predominate on the homepage? Why?

12. Name five things that contribute to the simplicity of design on this site.

Now write one to two paragraphs describing the implied users for this site. Identify the demographic characteristics (class, race, age, occupation, and so forth) for this group. Describe the values and attitudes these users are likely to share with respect to what they look for in a restaurant. Broadcast what thoughts they are likely to have when visiting the site. Support your inferences with evidence from the site. Instead of generalizing about the group, you may also use your imagination to describe the prototypical hooters.com user.

 

Making up the user: www.covergirl.com

1. Get Color Matched. What are the "best colors" for you?

2. After you get your results, click on the makeup mirror. What color of eye shadow do you need?

3. You have short, round nails. What kind of nail polish works best for you? (Makeup How-To's)

4. If Sagittarians have charm, why do they need "Professional Eye Enhancers"?

5. What is your "party style"? What color of blush works best for your party style?

6. Chose and list five names of colors from the site. What principle of selection did you use?

7. Make three generalizations about the kinds of color words used on this site.

8. Take the quiz: "What's your personal style" (Find your Makeup Look) what is your personal style look?

9. How would you describe your quiz and your feelings about it?

10. Given your current perspective on your identity (who you are, how you see yourself, what you value), why do you think you take the quiz in this spirit?

11. Imagine Covergirl.com's ideal user: what word would she (he?) use to describe the experience of taking this quiz? Why would they have this attitude?

12. What needs, values, and perhaps insecurities does this user have?

 

 

Banking on the great outdoors: www.rei.com

Exploring

1. What adventure would you choose to go on, if you had the time and the money? Why this adventure?

2. This winter, imagine you're going someplace very very cold. What item of gear will you buy to cope?

3. In "REI Community," who contributed the photo of the week for fishing community?

Rhetorical Analysis

1. Name four characteristics of targeted users.

2. What is the rhetorical goal of the site, i.e. what does the site want to persuade these users to do and/or believe?

The rhetoric of design

Given the rhetorical goal of the site...

3. What is the color and texture of the menu bar? Why weren't brighter colors chosen for the menu bar?

4. Why does the REI logo appear in dark brown here, instead of an "eye-catching" color, as purple, or neon green?

5. How is shading used on the menu bar? Why is shading used?

6. How is the picture of the snowboarder at the top of the page repeated? Why is the image repeated in this way?

 

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