Rhetoric and Poetics

Rhetoric and Poetics in Design
We started applying the four essential arts to design today, starting with Rhetoric and Poetics.

Communication and interaction are closely related in our work. Depending on what interpretation of interaction design you're using, to interact is to communicate or to communicate is to interact. So this diagram springs from putting communication at the center of design:




Poetics is the art of creating complete, emotionally satisfying experiences. The poetics of a work of art is its completeness.

Rhetoric is the art of persuasion through invention. It is not manipulation; it persuades by inventing arguments, arguments that the audience uses to draw their own conclusions. Rhetoric is not the decoration of messages, but the creation of arguments. Products are arguments about how we should live our lives.




Products have three characteristics: Ethos, the voice of the product, or its desirability; Pathos, which addresses the values and expectations (physical, cognitive, and cultural) of the audience--its affordances and adumbrations; and Logos, the technological reasoning, or how the product works. We are persuaded by all three aspects, sometimes one more than the others, sometimes all in balance.

Designing rhetorically is a radical method because in this model, there are no fixed truths or things. These exist only in the beliefs of the speaker and the audience. This model doesn't deny Truth; it is just held within the communication between people.