The main page of the desktop site, shown below, is an exceptional user friendly interface. In Mary E. Hocks' "Understanding Visual Rhetoric in Digital Writing Environments" she calls this the audience stance. Hock says, "the audience stance is established on the opening screen as music, images, text, and hyper-textual structure all set the stage for a highly interactive experience. The homepage of desktop site uses color strategically to differentiate the multiple sections, this hypertext, helps to create visual intractability for the audience, allowing the user to quickly find the text he/she further wants to explore without having to search around and figure it out on their own, which can be very frustrating for the user and happens far too often websites even our own Univserity's.
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| Homepage on the desktop version of the University's website. |
Aside from the main tabs that organize the sections of the website under the logo in a slightly different shade of red box and white text, two of the topics that they have chosen to standout: In the News: black hypertext and Discover: blue hypertext (see image 1) have within those headlines titles of sections that are highlighted in red and then below a smaller font text summarizing what is further described when the audience clicks on the red hypertext. The other sections that they made visually interactive are the sections: Maryland A-Z red hyptertext and Community black hyptertext I I (see image 2) by creating an interactive method. When the audience scrolls over the different headlines under these sections the text changes from a title to a title with an underline, this allows the audience to have an authoritative audience stance and control of the site. These are simple uses of hyptertext and text that create a profound easy experience for the user that visually rhetorically differentiate from sites that do not.
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| Image 1 |
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| Image 2 |
Cassandra and I had already decided to use the University of Maryland’s website for this blog. So, when I read Mary E. Hocks’ “Understanding Visual Rhetoric in Digital Writing Environments” I was pleased to find that the ideas she conveys in the article align well with what Maryland’s website does well. However, I was particularly interested in her discussion of transparency. Hocks defines transparency as “the ways in which online documents relate to established conventions like those of print, graphic design, film, and Webpages. The more the online document borrows from familiar conventions, the more transparent it is to the audience” (Hocks 632). In other words, the more a website adheres to the conventional ways in which humans process information, the more accessible that website will be. Therefore, since Maryland is trying to cater to students mostly, and since students always have access to their phones, Maryland needs to make sure that their mobile site is just as accessible as their computer site. See the image below:
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| Image of the Univsity's homepage of the mobile site. |
The website is a more broad expanse of information, shown below, whereas the mobile site condenses that information into headings that lead to certain destinations on the website. A mobile site must be simple and condensed, and it must provide the viewer easy accessibility so that they avoid pinching and zooming to find the information they need. Maryland understands that their audience is made up mostly of students, and they have provided accessibility for that audience that is clear and concise.
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| Screenshot of the desktop website. |
According to Hock's definition of audience stance and transparency the University of Maryland has created a website that is a successful example of visual rhetoric. Hopefully, other websites will start to adapt such techniques of accessibility and user friendliness.
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