www.hitwebcounter.com
<>

Rhetorical Analysis of Favorite Websites

When you visit a website, its design packages and mediates the information that you are experiencing.  Design conveys content as much as it conveys identities.  The purpose of the tasks on this page is to help you interrogate web designs and identities and in so doing, hopefully help us to be more critical in how we design our own websites. 


You have 4 tasks for website analysis

1. Define the purpose


What is the purpose of the website? Who does this website work to educate and empower?  Why? How?  

Is the site selling something?  How does it sell these items? 

Does the website build some sort of community around a common cause or issue? Does the website further a political/social cause?  

Does the website recruit volunteers for a project? Who?  How?

Does the website inform you about a person, place, or set of issues?  

How does the website communicate its purposes with more than just the words on the site?

2. Discuss the design


Is there a logo for this website?  If so, describe it.  How does the logo work with the purpose of site?

Is there a repeating image on this website (like a background image)?  Describe this image.  How does it work with the purpose of site?


What other kinds of images appear on the website?  Describe them.  How does they work with the purpose of site?


What is the color package of this website?  What does that color package convey in terms of message, mood, etc?

3. Discuss the Interactivity

How do the authors sound on this website?  Who are they talking to?  How do you know?

Describe the language of the site's author. How does the language work with the content and message of the site?

What are the various features of the site?  Who do you think uses this site regularly?

How do people interact with this site?  What do they do once they get there?  Do they comment?  

What kind of links to other sites and digital work does this site offer?  Why? How does that fit the message?

4. discuss The Influence on you


Why do YOU like this website?  

You chose websites that you like.  You do not have to like all aspects of your websites but their design should be something that teaches you something, something that  YOU want to emulate.  Describe this in detail.

Offer some comparisons between your two websites.  What are the commonalities in the two websites that drew you to them both?  What are the differences in these two websites that you like?