What should be an unforgettable face...

摘要

The history of interface development has led to a limited focus on the surface of the computer screen, and has asked us not to see how the design of what is on screen shapes the actions and thinking we can do while engaged with interfaces. In this article, we look back to arguments in Computers and Composition from the 1980s and early 1990s, arguments that tried to broaden our views so that we could see how interfaces are thoroughly rhetorical. We show how, then, and unfortunately, these arguments appear to have been forgotten: In handbooks and guides intended to help students in writing classes design and develop web sites, students are asked to think of interfaces―and hence audiences―only in terms of technical function and ease of use. The interfaces developed from such help can only then see audiences reductively. We offer suggestions of strategies teachers can use to help students develop reflexive and more generous interfaces.