Interface and Exordium: The Rhetoric of Interactivity - Carnegie

I liked how this article started with an abstract. It gave me an idea of what an abstract is, since I have never written one before - it's always just been an introduction. I also liked that all the headings were numbered. I felt that the structure of the paper was very clear and easy to follow. That being said, there was a lot of information in this piece that I really liked and feel I will be able to use for my analysis.

I like when the author says, "the interface functions rhetorically by asking how it makes the audience/user "well disposed, attentive, and receptive" (Cicero, 1960)". I think this idea, shared by Cicero and Carnegie, is fantastic, since it's about transforming the user simply by interface. I can make a similar argument about the interface of Pinterest. This article also distinguishes between physical human-computer interface (known as HCI) and user operation. I'm in a Usability course right now, so this is all very familiar with me as well (and I've actually quoted some articles from that class in some of my digital rhetorics papers). I think the distinction between the two terms is good, because the user centered operation is defined as more the screen with it's images, not so much the mouse or keyboard, which both affect the screen.

I also agree with the idea that the good interfaces are the ones that are not noticed by the users. This made me think twice about Pinterest, however. When I began using Pinterest, the first thing I noticed was the interface  but I noticed it because it was very different than anything I had seen before, and it worked well. This led me to think deeper about Pinteret's interface. This article also spoke about "the rhetorical implications that interfaces may have", and I like this thought because Pinterest's interface can very well influence it's users to a certain action, though the action may be different depending on the needs of the user.

As I'm looking through this article and my notes, I see so much that that I really like, and to talk about it all in detail would take way too long, so I'm just going to post the ideas I found interesting and that I feel could apply to my analysis. The interface as a place of interaction, what new media provides users with (in terms of being able to share content), and the engagement of the user in the interface. Also, the three modes of interactivity: multi-directionality, maipulability, and presence. Carnegie also spoke about the interface as being an exordium, which I liked because I'd never heard of the word before. This article also asked several questions in it's conclusion, and all of which were great to create more thought, which, I think, was the point.