We’ve started talking about the gestalt of a website and how the physical design is connected to the rhetorical purpose(s) of the site. (Johndan Johnson-Eilola has kindly loaned us his handy "Gestalt Theory Guide to Website Design," a neat little two-page handout that helps you identify principles of web design.) Before your group tries to build your own site, I’d like you to do a quick critique of someone else's site to analyze how well it works from a design standpoint: Does the site achieve its objectives? How does it do that? What doesn't work on the site and how/why would you change it? To do this, you’ll have to start evolving your own rhetorical standards for how you would evaluate a site, and that means figuring out what criteria count for you when you try to decide on a site’s quality.

To make matters a little simpler, I’ve chosen a literary website for each of you to analyze. I’d like you to try to present your analysis as a web page on your birdnest site so that you can practice putting your standards to work on your own materials. (If you haven’t used ExpressionWeb before, here's a manual to help you use the program.)

Here’s what you should do when creating your page:

1. Create a main heading for your entry and use Expression Web to style the heading so that it's appropriate for the visual design of the page (i.e., the hierarchy).
2. Take a screenshot of the main web page, crop and resize as necessary, then  save it as a 500 px wide jpg.
3. Put the screenshot (jpg version) in your analysis, under the main heading, centered.
4. Put a clickable link to that website below the screenshot.
5. Select some major design and arrangement aspects to analyze. You won't be able to analyze every aspect of the site, but you should pick at least five points to examine. For example, you might discuss the use of the design grid (covered both in the Gestalt Theory handout), the font choices, the kinds and locations of links, etc. Describe your general standards for judging that aspect, then analyze how well the web page you're looking at adheres to those guidelines.
6. Use headings to separate each of the points you cover. The headings should also be appropriate for the visual hierarchy of your page.  
7. Choose a text presentation style (bullets? Paragraphs? Wordles?) that allows you to present your analysis of each point, followed by an overall assessment.
8. When your page is complete, announce its publication to me and the class by sending the URL to the class listserve (WRIT510001@class.winthrop.edu).

Resources to help you set your standards:

Anne Frances Wysocki, “Monitoring Order: Visual desire, the Organization of web pages, and Teaching the Rules of Desire,” Kairos 3.2 (1998): http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/3.2/binder.html?features/wysocki/mOrder0.html

The Usability Professionals’ Association “Resources: About Usability,” http://www.upassoc.org/usability_resources/about_usability/what_is_ucd.html

Some short readings from Paul Krug’s great book on website design, Don’t Make Me Think: ch 8, ch9, and ch 10 (separate .pdf files).

A standard textbook on web design, Lynch and Horton’s Web Style Guide 2.0, http://www.webstyleguide.com/index.html?/.