ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter, I suggested that user-centered design, while valid, is
incomplete. In this chapter, I propose a new rubric. This becomes the focal
chapter in this book. Until now, I have presented arguments about things that
work and don’t work (focusing largely on the ones that don’t), and I have
presented theories about how websites are constructed, how language works,
what genres are, and so on. The arguments and theories are all important, but
from my point of view they are not meaningful until they come together to
present solutions. Earlier, I argued that it is better to describe a genre than
name it. If you can define it in terms of its exigencies, urgencies, purposes,
audiences, appropriate rhetorical stance, and its physical structure, you have a
tool you can use to evaluate it in detail. In this chapter I introduce that tool.
