Williams and Tollett: Intended Audience

One thing that I think many of us have lost sight of when reading this text (myself included) is its intended audience. We’re reading it in the context of an advanced English course, but I don’t believe it was created for graduate students involved with a writing program that places such a huge emphasis on the training of its instructors in technology and composition (we have a privilege that not many other universities have in terms of the resources we can utilize). Also, many of us have lived the vast majority of our lives co-existing with computers and have been able to achieve some level of novice or semi-pro stature when it comes to notions of visual rhetoric, design, and the Internet. Obviously, some of the concepts might appear to be beneath us, but for many it seems like a valuable resource (I think of my father-in-law who still has a dial-up connection, dated technology, and limited resources, but wants to create a website to share pictures of his grandson with co-workers, distant family, etc, and I feel like we take for granted this little bubble known as the academy with all of its bells, whistles, and blinking lights). Even for me, one of those pesky novice techie-kids, I was able to gain something from the text. For me, the chapter on basic design principles allowed me to critically look at my current website and make note of my “poor design” choices in relation to proximity, alignment, contrast, etc, and have an awareness and a knowledge that (although perhaps intuitive to some degree) can now be considered more concrete. Cheers.