Van Ittersum, Derek "Distributing Memory: Rhetorical Work in Digital Environments."

Van Ittersum, Derek "Distributing Memory: Rhetorical Work in Digital Environments." Technical Communication Quarterly 18.3 (2009): 259-280. Communication & Mass Media Complete. EBSCO. Web. 05 Oct. 2009.

Ittersum examines the future of digital media and human memory. He organizes his discussion using the following themes: memory practices, research study design, negotiating the tradeoffs, committing to constraints, adopting new technologies, and a conclusion. He provides recommendations for future research in the ways that software meets the needs of the user. He notes a prominent theory that states an object affords, or offers, organisms certain possibilities for action within specific environments. His data comes from a several interviews with small groups of selected graduate students. He concludes that users of digital media will not adopt new technologies that do not align with their existing methods.

Ittersum addresses software but presents a similar question to web design. How can web design aid the memory of the user? How can web design be more adaptable to the existing methods of the user? He urges designers not to overlook the ways users will work with the digital media. Designers must go beyond usability issues, address the software’s usefulness, and question whether the design is problematic for the user. With the proliferation of graphics, Ittersum attempts to assess the effects on memory. The strength of the article is that it postulates an additional consideration for web design – the human memory. However, due to the small, selected group analysis, the work has questionable research methods.

Overall, the ethos of this article is somewhat weak. It is not blind study but a selective one. To me, it seemed as if the method selection, analysis, and results are skewed. Ittersum only chose graduate students, and, in one study, both results came from one gender – female.