Web Site Analysis

This is a short but detail-oriented assignment in which you are to analyze the effectiveness of a web site’s “visual rhetoric.” According to the article we read by Patricia Sullivan, visual rhetoric is “the melding of visual esthetics and concern with rhetorical effectiveness for an audience” (109). In other words, web sites should be both visually pleasing and functional in their page organization and navigation.

Questions to consider in your analysis (you do not have to answer every question but should focus on the ones that best fit your chosen website):

  1. What is the website’s purpose? To provide information on a topic or issue? To advertise/ promote a business, service, product, person or institution? To encourage discussion or action on the part of the viewer/reader? A combination of these? Something else entirely? Finally, what is your evidence for your interpretation?
  2. Who is the site’s intended audience? Try to create a demographic profile of the audience: age, race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, education, occupation, religion (or not), political and social leanings/affiliations… Finally, what is your evidence for your interpretation?

The following questions about site design will help you analyze audience and purpose:

  1. What “content” does the site provide and how is it organized? How many pages does the site have and how many layers of pages? What information is on the main page? What is visible on pages without the need to scroll?
  2. How does the site provide navigation throughout? Is there a navigation menu and does it stay consistent throughout the site? Is the menu verbal or visual or both? Is the navigational system easy to understand and why or why not? If the navigation is difficult, do you believe this to be a result of poor design or is the challenge part of the site’s rhetorical purpose?
  3. Consider the visual and multimodal aspects of the site? What is the color palette? What mood or feeling do the colors create? How does the site use space–is the page cluttered or spare; is there a pattern to the way space is used? Are there photographs? Still graphics of various types? Moving images? Sound?
  4. And finally, does the site’s design meet the needs of its intended audience and work to achieve its purpose?

The details:

  • 2-4 pages double-spaced, one-inch margins
  • Please include your name, course name and number, instructor name, and web site URL at the top of your paper.
  • Submit your draft and revision by uploading them to your individual “group” folder in the Writing Studio.
  • Draft due: Tuesday, Oct. 2 at the start of class
  • Revision due: Thursday, Oct. 11 at the start of class


image: detail of installation by Bronwyn Lace