@article {1158, title = {"Light Green Doesn{\textquoteright}t Mean Hydrology!": Toward a Visual-Rhetorical Framework for Interface Design}, journal = {Computers and Composition}, volume = {18}, year = {2001}, chapter = {39}, abstract = {

The utility of metaphor as a visual\–rhetorical design framework has diminished dramatically, and continues to erode. Metaphor has two important limitations as it is commonly applied in interface design: (a) metaphors are\ indexical, pointing to physical artifacts that they represent, and (b) metaphors are\ static, that is, unwavering in their indexicality. Both assumptions are demonstrably flawed. In this article, I first critically examine metaphor\’s limitations as a visual\–rhetorical framework for designing, evaluating, and critiquing user interfaces. Next, I outline an alternate framework for visual rhetoric, that of\ genre ecologies, and discuss how it avoids some of the limitations of metaphor. Finally, I use an empirical study of computer users to illustrate the genre-ecology framework and contrast it with metaphor.

}, author = {Spinuzzi, Clay} }