Persuasive Technology Design - A Rhetorical Approach

This article offers a rhetorical design perspective on persuasive technology design, introducing Bitzer’s method of the rhetorical situation. As a case study, knowledge workers in an industrial engineering corporation are examined using Bitzer’s method. Introducing a new system, knowledge workers are to be given the task of innovating and maintaining business processes, thus contributing with content in an online environment. Qualitative data was gathered and Bitzer’s theory was applied as a design principle to show that persuasive technology designers may benefit from adopting rhetorical communication theory as a guiding principle when designing systems. Bitzer’s theory offers alternative ways to thinking about persuasive technology design.