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The Web Rhetoric

Triangle Model
Rhetoric and its participation in
Information Architecture for the Web

By Omar Sosa Tzec
Profesor Hanno Ehses
Visual Rhetoric
Master in Information Design
Universidad de las Amricas, Puebla
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As mentioned in the Rhetorical Handbook by Ehses et
al. (1996), Rhetoric is a vocabulary which describes
the effective, persuasive use of speech is not a set of
xed stylistic rules, but an open description of the pat-
terns and processes of communication. The rhetorician
chooses a style, or a mode of appeal, which will be pow-
erful and appropriate in given situation. In addition,
the gures of speech are elements considered by Ehses
et al. (1996) as a departure from the ordinary use of
language. These gures are categorized into tropes and
schemes. The rst ones alter the customary reference
of signs, and the latter alter their normal arrangement
(Ehses et al., 1996). In this context, the word sign refers
to an entity, not autonomous, neither self-contained
entity nor physical object, but only exist in relation to
other signs (Ehses et al., 1996). In a simple way, a sign is
nothing but a unit of meaning; therefore, constructs ev-
ery communication process (i.e. the speech). According
to Ehses (1989) the major (rhetoric) gures are grouped
in gures of contrast, gures of resemblance, gures
of contiguity and gures of gradation. Metaphor (from
resemblance gures), Metonymy and Synecdoche (from
contiguity gures), and Hyperbole (from the gradation
group), are some of the major gures specially used in
graphic design.
By other hand, the Information Architect concept was
introduced by Richard Salwurman (1996) to dene a
new discipline that refers to the professionals with the
purpose is to take complex information and to conduct
it to certain audience in a simple form as possible. In an
explicit way, Saulwurman (1996) denes the Informa-
tion Architect as: 1) The individual who organize inherit
patterns in data, making clear the complex. 2) An indi-
vidual that creates the structure or map of information
allowing others to nd their own paths to knowledge. 3)
The emerging professional occupation of 21st century
that cares about the needs, the clarity, human knowl-
edge and the science of information organization.
Certainly, with the growing of the Web, the roll of the in-
formation architects results relevant. In the professional
websites construction, the information architect has the
Introduction
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responsibility of carrying all the process such that client
requirements should be accomplished (i.e. some com-
pany or organization) but at the same time to reach the
objective of using the website as an effective communi-
cation with the user (i.e. the individual that navigate the
site). In this process, the information architecture takes
new denitions; according to Rosenfeld et al. (2002),
they dene it as: 1) The combination of organizing,
labeling and navigation schemes within an informa-
tion system. 2) The structural design of an information
space to easy the accomplishing of tasks and intuitive
access to content. 3) The art and science of structuring
and classify websites and intranets for helping people
to handle information. 4) An emergent discipline and
practitioners community focused to carry the principles
of design and architecture to the digital context. In not
so formal terms, Shiple (2005) refers to information
architecture as the founding for a great web design and
as the blueprint which it bases the construction of all
elements of a website.
Information architecture is a process that is supported
in the capacities of abstract structuring of information
by the architect and his experience about the websites
constructions and his understanding of communica-
tion which the user according the needs of the latter.
However, all architecture process has certain common
steps (Van Dijck, 2003; Shiple, 2005) which are: 1)
Identifying the business goals. 2) Identifying site goals.
3) Identifying the potential users, their categorization
and requirements analysis. 4) Determining content and
functionality. 5) To elaborate organizational schemes,
categorization and labeling to determine the navigation-
al structure. 6) User interface design with wire frames
and nal layout elaboration. These steps with their cor-
respondent methods allow the increasing construction
and evaluation of a website taking in count the business
goals and needs from the different categorized users
types.
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Therefore, it can be seen that the constant growing con-
struction of websites need the effective communication
skills of the information architect. However, theres and
important fact about the information architects: they
are handling with some new kind of speech, the one that
hoards all the possible listeners that relates the poten-
tial users and others that fortunately can be part of the
audience (i.e. to navigate by some cause). This new kind
of speech needs effective tools to succeed. The basic
and primarily tool involved is rhetoric. The rhetoric of
websites is somehow an special kind: the web rhetoric;
this new rhetoric considers all the statements estab-
lished for the classic one, but an appropriate mapping to
this eld is done, so the information architect, as leader
in website construction process, should handle in mind
with all these rhetoric aspects, which he does, even if he
is not explicitly considering them.
The web rhetoric is inherent in the information
architecture process by its three appealing modes:
logos, pathos and ethos. For each one, the information
architect should stress the quantity enough to reveal the
persuasive for conducting a particular audience. Also,
the schemes and tropes presented in classic rhetoric are
used. The latter often applied in the front-end character-
istics that users will watch in their screens.
During the information architecture process the three
appeals of rhetoric conforms the navigational structure
and hoarding content elements. The three appealing
modes are the basic pillars that support the construc-
tion of a website to function as an persuasive speech; if
the speech is persuasive enough, the audience will listen
carefully (i.e. navigate the site appropriately) and that
will come the repeating of the speech in some future as
result (i.e. coming back to the site). The adequate con-
struction of the speech allow s the audience to conform
patterns that will facilitate and understand how to listen
to these kind of speeches; in other words, users gain
knowledge, the eventually will have the skill of navigate
websites in the way they can accomplish their tasks suc-
cessfully.
Web Rhetoric
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The web rhetoric is inherent in the
information architecture process by
its three appealing modes: logos,
pathos and ethos. For each one, the
information architect should stress
the quantity enough to reveal the
persuasive for conducting a particu-
lar audience.
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The information architecture process in the rhetoric
process can be modeled by the rhetoric triangle. In
each corner of the triangle is positioned one appeal of
rhetoric, each one can take a minimum value (i.e. set to
zero) to its highest value (e.g. set to one for all of tem),
so this triangle lives in a three dimensional space such
its inclination determines the stressing corresponding to
each rhetoric appeals.

When information architecture starts, the rhetoric
triangle lies on a plane (e.g. x-y plane from the Cartesian
three dimensional space) and while the information ar-
chitecture goes forward the triangle starts to elevate (in
space), according to the stressing of each rhetoric appeal
considered by the information architect.
Web Rhetoric Triangle
Rhetoric web triangle in its
initial state and the representa-
tion of the same top value for
each appealing mode.

From raw data by client and user

needs information architect starts
to work with raw information and
stressing the logos and ethos
appeals. At the end of informa-
tion architecture a nal product
is realesed which all the rhetoric
appeals stressed somehow.
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As happens in information architecture, in the begin-
ning the data is raw, the business goals and potentials
users (and their needs) are identied. Before these hap-
pens the logos is the only one stressed. It has a consider-
able high. When the information architect already has
the rst requirements mentioned before, the categori-
zation and labeling process plays an important part to
accomplish them. Is in this stage when the information
architect uses his skills as a speaker for the dened
audience; the information categorization and labeling
is done, so the ethos reected by the maturity of the in-
formation architect is reected in this point. Therefore,
the triangle corner that corresponds to the ethos arises
as well. Is important to mention that the elevation ethos
corner is not arbitrary at all, it is clear the information
architect is a person that understands and knows how
to build the speech, so a cognitive uniformity within
websites construction is inherent, even if there are many
professional that dedicates to this discipline.
Even when the information is navigationally structured,
it is no recommendable to release the speech, but it can
be done. Is in this case when a website is presented,
leaving almost all consideration about the pathos ap-
peal. If a website is presented in this way, the logos and
the ethos appeals are very stressed (i.e. elevate high)
and the pathos one could be null or very low. Besides, is
common to nd in this cases some aspects related with
other kind of ethos, the one involved with the develop-
ment team of the tool used by the user to listen (i.e. web
browser), because each different tool has its own ethos
to display content as it can be the default typographies,
link coloring, etc.
Logos and Ethos
The ethos stressing is part of the
iterative process of Information
Architecture. Also pathos corner
starts to elevate a little.

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Event if the logos and ethos are stressed previously,
the stressing possibilities for ethos havent reached the
highest. The ethos appeal is also related with the basic
characteristics attributed to content. Its important to
remember that web rhetoric has its own needs to be
persuasive. To control media synthesis is very important
for the information architect to reach all marked goals.
The right basic content design as can be web writing,
web legible typography selection and links coloring are
some supervised activities by the information architect
which reects his ethos stressing, including the possible
members of the staff. Besides, whether it is only one
person doing all the work or well-conformed teams,
aspects inherent with layout design are part of the
ethos stressing also. Furthermore to present the user a
whole navigation and content structure, the information
architect must know how to apply rhetoric tropes and
schemes (e.g. metaphor).
This stage involves the pathos appeal in some tradeoff
about the selection of content elements that reects
the emotion and mood that corresponds both site goals
and users hoarding. Its important to mention that
both of them are constrained by the actual technology
capabilities and the user context; for example the ethos
stressing could found a top in its elevation because there
is not such technological tools that support informa-
tion architect rst ideas and the pathos may be limited
so it is impossible to impact users with an astonishing
media element because they dont have a high speed
connection or they have some special capabilities (e.g.
blindness).
Pathos stressing is directly related with the usage of
images, sound and video. The images that elevates the
pathos corner are the ones that reect emotions, so
this stressing can be incremented with images related
with people, even if they are realistic or not; also can be
considered any image that gets the right mood by con-
vention from the potential users. The same is applied to
sound and video, all is about the potential users percep-
tion and probably according to the company consider-
Ethos and Pathos

Pathos stressing will reect some

perceptions from the users, so
positive reactions to their mood
should be gained.

Region corresponding to naviga-

tional related rhetoric gures.
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ations. For this appeal is clear that more the information
architect indicates the interface and interaction design
team members to stress, the reduction of audience and
rm characterization of the users prole will be marked;
the potential users has their own conventionally percep-
tions, so the media reected would provoke a negative
reaction to any kind of user not considered. Then it is
very important that pathos stressing should be well jus-
tied with the purpose of hoarding audience of potential
users, and to avoid the annoying of the speech.
The handling of tropes and schemes in pathos elevation
is also required. For this stressing, according to the con-
strains given by the context, the information architect
together with the interface and interaction designers can
determine how to apply correctly rhetoric gures to im-
pact the audience adequately, even with simple things.

Region corresponding to expres-

sive content related rhetoric
gures.
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Example Analysis
The next illustrative example shows the different results
from stressing the appeals of rhetoric. In this case, a
personal site is constructed. After categorizing and la-
beling raw information a rst structured site is present-
ed, hence logos is hiperstressed and no consideration on
design content is gured.
Logos stressed index web page.
Example of logos stressed inner
web page.
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Following this structured, a rst version of ethos (be-
sides the kind of content by being personal) is elabo-
rated. To stress the ethos, right selection of content
presentation is chosen, no metaphors decided to be
applied and the website is shown with its own identity
under the idea conceive ideas. A metaphor of a sperm
is done by a mouse gure and the site reects the idea
of ux in its background. Also the iconization is related
with the conception evolution.
Ethos stressed index web page.
Example of ethos stressed inner
web page.
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Considering a little more pathos aproach, a second
version of ethos stressed website is constructed. In this
case the basic button metaphor is used for the main
menu. The avour of the website still the same, but a
more fresh identity is shown. Also some metaphors in
icon design are included, like a house to redirect to the
home page or an arrow with a n to indicate de site map.
By other hand, a big ethos stressing can be seen in the
redesigning of the index page to give uniformity in the
cognitive navigation process.
Variation of ethos stressed index
web page.
Example of variation on ethos
stressed inner web page.
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For this example, pathos stressing was more content
related with bright colors and images of the individual
which the site refers to. These pictures should express
some kind of joy, soy they show this individual jumping.
For each section, the ethos and logos were attached by a
right selection of pictures; for example, people working
together for the homework section. Other fact was the
selection of rhetoric gures as can be seen in the links
section, where a picture of the individual an his friend is
used as a pun to the word links.
Pathos stressed index web page.
Example of pathos stressed inner
web page.
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From the statements about rhetoric and Web, it can be
seen that the rst one is attached with the communica-
tion process inside the second. The rhetoric triangle is
somehow implicit in every architecture process and all
web pages construction. Then, the information architect
creates a whole categorization of the possible eleva-
tions of each corner in the rhetoric triangle based on
his experience and maturity to handle with this new
media, understanding what are the features that should
be considered to seduce the expected individual that
will navigate the site in consideration. If the handling
of web speech is uniformly, then it is possible to make
a hypothesis about all websites that are related accord-
ing their persuasive intentions will have similar values
of stressing. So, the rhetoric triangle allows the visu-
alization of the categories of sites inside the Web and
furthermore, it can be used as a tool to express to the
client how rhetoric aspects inuence in the architecture
process.
Discusion
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Conclusions
Web is involved with a new kind of speech and there-
fore, a new kind of rhetoric is presented, the web
rhetoric.
The information architect is a new kind of speaker that
understands his audience.

The rhetoric triangle brings the capability of under-
standing how of each of the rhetoric appeals could be
stressed and allows visualizing the relation of websites
inside the same category and what makes the difference
from others.
No matter how the Web will evolve as communication
medium, the rhetoric would be always present as an ef-
fective tool of architecture.
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Apendix: Screenshots Comparative
Ethos 1 Ethos 2 Pathos
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18
Ehses, Hanno. Design and Rhetoric: An Analysis of
Theatre Posters. Design Papers 4. Second printing.
Canada. 1989.
Ehses, Hanno, et al. Rhetorical Handbook. Depart-
ment of Visual Communication of Nova Scotia College.
Canada. 1996.
Rosenfeld, Lois; Morville, Peter. Information Archi-
tecture for the World Wide Web. OReilly & Associates.
USA. 2002.
Saulwurman, Richard. Information Architects. Graphic
Press. USA. 1996.
Shiple, John. Information Architecture Manual. Wired
Digital.
URL: www.webmonkey.com. 2005.
Van Dijck, Peter. Information Architecture for Design-
ers. Roto Vision. Switzerland. 2003.
References
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omar.sosa@gmail.com