During class on Wednesday, we discussed rhetoric in terms of the Union of Concerned Scientists website. After class, I decided to check out other websites with the same purpose, of getting donations, as the UCS website. One aspect of the websites that stood out was the similarities in the menus of the website. Many of the menus started with the issues or stances that the individual or the organization supported. A lot of amateur websites have the home button as the first tab of the menu, but professionally-developed websites seem to deliberately separate the link to the home page from the rest of the menu. When dealing with a list, humans tend remember the first item in the list after a significant time. Perhaps the goal of this positioning is to sway the audience to continue to considering the stances that the websites promote.
Almost all of the websites also had the donate button as the last item in the list, highlighted by a different color. If the donate button was presented as the first item of the list, it would give the site a more aggressive feel. Along with the first item of a list, the last item on the list is one of the most easily noticed or remembered. However, it’s quickly forgotten relative to the first item of the list. Thus, the donate button is strategically placed such that it is consistently noticed by the audience, but not such that it remains in the mind of the individual long enough that perhaps the individual begins to regret his/her contribution to the organization. While it may seem insignificant, the organization of the website menu seems to be an example of visual rhetoric.
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