Graduation Year

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Degree Granting Department

English

Major Professor

Lisa Melonçon, Ph.D.

Committee Member

José Á. Maldonado, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Liane Robertson, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Nancy Myers, Ph.D.

Keywords

digital rhetoric, equitable user experience, knowledge production, meaning making, specialized website

Abstract

This research seeks to create an alternative model for website design that interrogates standardized, linear ways of knowing and being by placing the audience at the center of the web design process. This research contributed a reimagined approach to traditional and standardized web design heuristics by considering an audience-centric methodology that was practical and applicable for web design praxis to create equitable user experiences which can empower audiences to recall their own knowledge and experience to make meaning for themselves through a reimagining of knowledge-making processes in a network of digitized information. In perceiving the rhetorical choice in design of websites, the rhetorical significance of finding aids within a digital information infrastructure, and the bias/influence that a web designer brings into the rhetorical situation of website, it is important for a digital creator to truly separate themselves from their digital creation. This sort of humanities-focused research re-engages with the idea that the human should be kept at the center of the technological process by reimagining and rethinking generalized ideas of knowledge-making and how it is influenced by a network of digitized information by centering the audience in the design process. Through user testing processes of this research, this project developed the PULL heuristic which explains how current digital creators and web designers can incorporate equitable user experiences into their digitized projects. The PULL model is carried out through Providing solutions for user needs by allowing user feedback to be prioritized in influencing the planning and overall goals for the redesign process; Understanding that everything on a website is a system of meaning that feeds into the users’ understanding of the contextual situation. This can measured by conducting asynchronous and synchronous interviews with individuals who represent each website’s specialized user-audiences; Learning about the specialized website’s user-audience(s) and their needs and frustrations. This can be measured through pre-design survey data; and Listening to user needs and experiences on a continuous basis and reacting to those experiences through reiterative design to meet evolving user-audience needs.

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