My studies in rhetoric have generally been focused on the classical philosophies related to linguistic communication. Kolko, in the second part of his text, introduced me to the notion of design rhetoric. I had not considered the implications of the fact that all forms of design convey some sort of argument, and these are frequently rooted in the designer’s own world-view and philosophy. For example, the designer of a cell-phone interface who chooses to emphasize and increase the ease-of-access to Twitter while sacrificing the ability to easily make phone calls. While the phone remains capable of making calls the fact that Twitter has been brought more fully to the user’s attention could potentially lead to that user adopting Twitter as a primary medium of communication. Consumer reactions to the product may differ, but if a portion of the users make such a switch the implications could be far-reaching. I have observed the evolution of Twitter from its beginnings as a little-known web-service, its purpose apparently exclusive to a niche of internet users, to a world-wide community that has become as integral to our internet devices as making calls. Even news companies, like CNN, have adopted Twitter for its ability to monitor trending topics and maintain an ongoing conversation with the network’s viewers—in this way its influence has vastly expanded from its origins, and the Kolko reading leads me to wonder what designers are responsible.
Kolko says that leaders of the Forbes 500 have shifted their focus in advertising to emphasizing the experience (68). This shift in the philosophy of some of the major controlling forces in our society both reveals the pervasive understanding of the importance of user-interaction as well as presents some ethical concerns regarding the fidelity of the experiences they are attempting to sell. The task of the designer has become infinitely more complex because each user’s experience is unique, yet designs must incorporate elements of uniformity as well as unpredictability in order to convey a continually satisfying experience for all users. Some companies do not necessarily try to create these engaging, quality, honest interactions—they engage in planned-obsolescence to encourage the purchase of more products, utilize shoddy materials (frequently beneath the surface so that users are unaware), and even release products that are incomplete. Kolko mentions the changing understanding of quality control as we move further into the digital age—gadgets must be produced with attention to both the physical product as well as the software, and users expect both to be free of glitches (78). The ability to update software is useful for designers who want to add functionality and improve efficiency over time, but some software is released rife with errors or even incomplete. The fiercely competitive market of online gaming is one venue where the malleability of software is of great importance to both designers and users—nobody expects a newly released game to be entirely free of bugs, which often only reveal themselves when hundreds of thousands of people are interacting with the software at the same time, but often this fact serves as justification for why a newly released product is not meeting user expectations. The massively multiplayer game Age of Conan, for example, was pushed-out in a rush to remain competitive with other games being released at the same time, and the designers had yet to implement half of the content. Their expectation was that the users would spend time experiencing the early content long enough for them to polish the later content, but of course their audience is not uniform and some players reached the game’s limits by the end of the first few days.
Kolko touches on an interesting topic related to the ways interaction can alter behavior that I, having grown up surrounded by digital gadgets and computers, have often considered. These technologies have had a profound influence on the cognitive development of their users. My generation has developed an affinity for these devices; our ability to quickly learn and interact with them has become a source of bafflement to our parents and elders, yet it seems there is a mental cost to be paid. I only know two phone numbers by heart—my own and my family’s home number. My incentive to memorize anything is greatly decreased by the fact that I expect to be able to, at any given moment, pull up a far more accurate source of information to reference. It is as if the Internet is my external memory. The implications of this could be severe—people generate new ideas by drawing connections between past experiences stored as information in the brain, but if information is not present in our minds it surely cannot be synthesized to form new ideas. This notion of our technology having such a profound influence on our working minds truly emphasizes the role of interaction design in the life of the user—these designs become integrated into our routines and thereby affect how we go about experiencing the world around us.
The power of design rhetoric is evident in the warlike struggle between competing companies to claim more of a user’s limited attention. Sturken and Cartwright suggest that relationships of power are at play whenever we engage in the act of looking, and the truth of this becomes clear whenever we browse the internet or watch TV (9). As intrusive as TV commercials may be we still have the ability to ignore them or change the channel if we desire not to see them, but on the internet a single page might be framed on all sides by flashing ads. Sometimes my eye is drawn to these ads against my will, and when that occurs the company behind it has been victorious in asserting the power of an image to steal attention. Even if I do not respond to the ad by clicking it the damage has been done simply by looking—the image has entered my head and cannot be unseen. The more I see it over the course of browsing sessions, the more of an impression it makes on me. It is therefore no surprise that Sturken and Cartwright point out the common association between “ideology” and “propaganda” in contemporary culture (23). If our ideologies are shaped by our experiences, then by presenting us with as much of their visual stimulus as possible a company or institution can hope to influence how we think.
For members of my generation, Roland Barthes’s theory of the myth of photographic truth comes as no surprise (16). I have been skeptical of images ever since I learned, around middle-school age, that one of my favorite photographs of a shark leaping from the water to bite a man dangling from a helicopter had been ‘shopped. I believe that digital editing practices have led to an increased sense of skepticism, leading people to seek truth beyond the visual medium, utilizing different sources to come to a fuller understanding.
My undergraduate minor was in psychology, so I have had the opportunity to learn about psychological perception. For me, Sturken and Cartwright’s concept that “the viewer makes the meaning” is a comfortable one—no matter how many people experience a single image and discuss it amongst themselves, each individual is experiencing a wholly unique perception which draws upon their memory of past experiences. People may come to similar conclusions about the meaning of a piece, but the meaning of that meaning is nevertheless linked to many other meanings in each individual, none of which possesses the same set of experiences.
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