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“What should be an unforgettable face…”

Anne Francis Wysocki and Julia I Jasken argue that since the nineties, as the focus on computers and composition has moved to online texts, researchers have
forgotten what early work in computers and composition taught about the nature of interfaces, which in turn has led to a current situation where interfaces them-
selves are treated as things to be forgotten. They argue that compositionists should once again focus on seeing interfaces and how those interfaces “take part in the
wide ranging, and certainly not always positive effects that computers have in our practices, lives, and relations with others” (37) and “how we are rhetorically
called into so many of the behaviors and practices we have (and perhaps might not want)” through the construction of interfaces (44). Wysocki and Jasken encour-
age teachers of composition to begin practicing seeing interfaces and “asking, regularly, who and what are not made present at the screen” and “what behaviors
and actions are encouraged—and not—by all that is on screen and by the actions and decisions that have shaped what is on screen” (45). They also broaden this
discussion beyond the screen by reminding us that “[w]e need to be seeing all texts as having interfaces” (45).
Wysocki, Anne Francis, and Julia I. Jasken. “What should be and unforgettable face….” Computers and Composition. 21
handbooks teach students to construct interfaces, the former asking
Wysocki and Jasken ask us to recognize that “interfaces are thor-
oughly rhetorical: Interfaces are about the relations we construct
with each other—how we perceive and try to shape each other—
through the artifacts we make for each other” (33). They look at inter-

besides those of computer screens and printed texts are we constant-


faces both through the work of early scholars and how textbooks and

us to see interfaces, the latter to forget them. What other interfaces

(2004): 29–48.

effort audiences put into designs, shapes actions,


care about the time and and through its formal
this a screen? Are you?

printed and online” (45). an ethos that shows they software, in its turn
texts as having interfaces, the one hand, to construct also ask us to see how
“We need to be seeing all • “Students are asked on • and software, and they
eyes” (45). thinking or …?” (40). approach computers
immediately before our critical and interpretative how designers and users
not limited to what is or patience or careful relationships that shape
ticing…seeing that is ple who value generosity existing values and
“We need to be prac- • faces to lok at us as peo- try to see the already
open to them” (41). “Do we want our inter- • “these writers ask us to •
plex range of possibilities (37) forget to see?” (31)
and make use of the com- through our interfaces” and then, just as often, to
to help them understand duced views of each other age or allow us to see,
with no specific examples often than not, given re- and read them—encour-
appropriateness—but argue is that we are, more classes should both shape
consider suitability and “What these writers • we and people in our
the other, they asked to (34). our teachings about how
reading, and no more; on thinking, and attitudes” “What do interfaces—and •
ly asked not to see?

a text positions us and others? Quotes


letting web designers control how
site. What are the implications of
people who will visit that web-
identities or subjectivities of the
or at least our identities and the
tuality, “materialize” our dreams,
about those interfaces may, in ac-
people who make the decisions
to interfaces, the assertion that the
we think about and pay attention
sinister? Perhaps you should. As
a webpage design company a tad
Do you find this advertisement for
Is

little extrapolation.
does only require a
system, but that
into a matrix like
Is this what agency interfaces take us
amounts to when wouldn’t say that
we don’t pay atten- Jasken probably
tion to interfaces? Wysocki and

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