Tag: rhetorical analysis

There are many non-profit organizations out there looking to help refugees and immigrants seek asylum. Below is a rhetorical analysis of the non-profit website www.lirs.org. The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service was designed to help refugees escape life threatening situations and get the attention of volunteers/donors to help. By taking the time to analyze the audience, purpose, context, author and genre of this website will determine if the site is truly effective or not. LIRS has many positive design choices along with a very persuasive intention and delivery to make a change, making LIRS an effective website to gain donors and inform refugees on the steps they need to take to gain safety.

These smart design choices begin right on the landing page of the site in the navigation bar. Without having to scroll you immediately see an orange button that stands out and grabs your attention through a linguistic and gestural mode of communication. The capital letters make it known that it is important and the button makes it interactive for the donors.  This shows that LIRS primary audience is donors/volunteers and their main goal is to get donors to help make a change. The secondary audience is the refugees who are seeking asylum and looking to learn more. We know this due to the different tabs that are in the navigation bar, by providing different resources and how to take action will help the refugees get a better understanding of the non-profit.

The overall intention of the LIRS website is to persuade people to donate and volunteer their money and time to help spread the word and support the refugees. It is very clear that this is the main purpose due to the linguistics and visuals all over the website. Between the TAKE ACTION tab and the large DONATE button it is very clear that they are looking for donations and volunteers. Not only is the purpose indicated through the drop down menu but the site also states its mission and its values under the ABOUT US tab. When reading through the author of the site truly persuades you to want to help the refugees, even if it is only a little it make a change in someone else’s world.

When analyzing this non-profit it is clear to tell that the medium is the web. This medium is used for many reasons including it is easy to access and it has the ability to reach many people, especially in todays society where everyone is constantly on their phones, tablets, or computers. This was a very smart move on the authors end because it gives the donors the ability to donate from the click of their mouse or fingers and it also allows for many people to easy learn more information just by searching the web. Through this medium the site has the ability to touch on many of the modes of communication including linguistic, visual, spatial, and gestural. These can all be reached through different text, fonts, images, white spacing, and buttons throughout the site. The different categories of the site are organized in the navigation bar at the top of the homepage and the site uses a very attention grabbing color scheme that includes white, navy, and a pop of orange to really gain emphasis. It makes use of different heading sizes, along with incorporating images at the top of every page to bring in the emotion.  If the person viewing the site sees these emotional picture of children and families in need, they are more likely to donate money or time to supporting the refugees.

The implied author behind the scenes of this website is the The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services but the actual authors are the people behind the scenes. Some of these name include board chair, Michael Rinehart, vice chair, Linda Stoterau, interim president and CEO, Pat Nichols, director for marketing and communications, Danielle Bernard, and director of outreach, Folabi Olagbaju. All of these people have made it possible for there to be content on this website. This is a trustworthy source due to the fact that all of these people involved have had past experience and knowledge of refugees and three people on the board are actually former refugees who are now trying to help others. A lot of people come together to make this site possible so the author comes across as very knowledgeable and gives a lot of insight because everyone on the team has experienced different encounters. This author is looking to raise awareness and gain support of the refugees and immigrants and the website they have produced definitely back up that reputation. The author of the site also gives off a very organized vibe due to the clean cut colors and layout of the site overall.

The LIRS website is put under the genre of nonprofit. You can clearly tell this because of the layout of the site and the content it shows. Many nonprofits have rows and top navigation, it is the standard layout for a site that is made for a nonprofit. Not only that but the large images that are placed throughout the site allow for emotion and that is one of the main factors in drawing people in to donate. The sites linguistics are mainly geared toward the helping and the wellbeing of refugees and immigrants and there are many call to actions which all people to interact and donate. You could also say that LIRS is an educational site as well due to the fact that it gives a lot of information for the refugees or people learning about refugees to gain information.

After analyzing the entire LIRS site it is clear that they have a motive and want to help. But there are also some things that could be changed to help gain them more donors and attention. Some of these things include incorporating more videos to really get empathy from the users.  As a social media user I would also recommend that they use their social media platforms to their advantage and incorporate hashtags and more links to their social platforms since social media is currently the way of the world. They make use of many different fonts and heading sizes which is a great way to gain attention and make a point. But I do not think that everything has to be in capitals because it starts to take away the point of emphasis. You only want to capitalize the words you want to take a lot of meaning and to make a point with. Overall, I feel that this site was made in an effective manner and does its goal of persuading people to donate and want to make a change through its linguistics, visuals, gestures, and spatial layout.

Works Cited:

 Lutheran Immigration and Refugees Service. 2019. www.lirs.org/. Accessed February 11 2019.

When a company wants someone to donate money to them, there needs to appear like there is legitimacy to the organization. Otherwise, it feels like a scam and people don’t want to donate. With donating online, the legitimacy comes from the website design. If the layout and aesthetics of the website don’t come together effectively, the website loses its credibility. I am going to digest the nonprofit organization, the Maryland Immigration Rights Coalition (MIRC), by rhetorically analyzing their website on whether or not it is effective at getting its purpose across: having people donate money or time towards helping immigrants in America.

 

From the first click onto the website, it’s hard to see what the true target audience is. The text appears under the “About MIRC” section, with nothing else there to catch the eye. Even the donate button is bland like all the others. The layout for the site has lots of empty space in left and right columns making the website seem as if it wasn’t formatted correctly for web pages.

 

 

After looking on a cellphone of the same site, everything fit perfectly, as if that was the reason for the layout decisions.

 

 

Cellphones are used on 47 times per day (Wolfe 2018). The amount of people in the United States that use the internet as of 2011 is 245 million, 78.2% of the population (CNN 2011). Today, internet users are growing at a rate of  about 200% worldwide (Popular Mechanics 2019). After looking at MIRC’s multiple times, it’s hard to view the website as a good fit for cellphones. It ‘s hard to imagine someone walking down the street or killing time by reading about the website. It appears more fit for a computer or laptop if the audience was in the mindset of learning more about the organization or getting involved, maybe if they went to a library.  The author had the right mindset with appealing to the most popular medium for viewing content, but when people are mostly on social media apps or games on cellphones, and app should’ve been made to truly make the organization cellphone friendlier.

 

The website is non-profit, educational and political. The tabs under the “Resources” button are all materials for education to the audience.

 

 

The conflict in general transcends political barriers, and the organization itself is non-profit. A good way to describe MIRC is: a small organization wanting people to donate money and their time to help immigrants in need in America. Even though the web design is not extremely similar to other non-profit organizations, its text is similar: giving information regarding the organization’s mission to help a certain group of people, the people they are helping, and how to help.

 

This non-profit organization does not follow the typical web design setup that other organizations have when it comes to how their web pages are structured. It looks old fashioned with the general setup of: title of organization at the top of the webpage (but centered), a picture/looped video representing the organization, and a donate button.

 

 

But nothing pops out showing its targeted audience. The assumption is that being an organization that requires donors, the primary audience is probably donors or volunteers. Now, this conclusion only comes from prior knowledge of other non-profit organization website structures. With MIRC’s, there’s nothing making donations stand out. No colored button, no size difference, nothing. But being non-profit, all outside money is important. I can guess that the donor/volunteer audience is specified highly towards Democrats or Anti-Trump people. This is due to many articles or hyperlinks leading to text that speaks out against the Trump administration.

 

 

 

 

The second purpose to reach audiences and secondary audience type are people who want to be educated on the topic at hand. Lots of tabs under “Resources” talk about immigration and issues present such as Immigration 101.

 

 

The hope with these targeted audiences is that they are humanitarian, hard-working, and/or sympathetic so they donate money and/or time towards helping immigrants.

 

MIRC gives lots of information pertaining immigrants living in America and the challenges they face. The author tries to pull at contemporary issues to encourage the audience to donate money and/or time talking about topics such as Trump’s administration and ICE Raids (articles found under the “Resources” button).

 

 

This point can be seen through a video found under the “Immigration 101” button within the “Resources” button…

 

 

…through any number of “Resource” button tabs, or by clicking on hyperlinks found at the bottom of any page.

 

 

However, there are minimal unique ways of interacting with the web browser, or eye popping ways to gain the attention of the reader.  Little is done with the use of photos, gifs, or anything that is popular now-a-days. Things appear out of date. This can also be seen with multiple articles dates being nearly 2 years old.

 

 

 

The purpose for this organization is to encourage its audience to give money or help out immigrants and to educate them on current issues. This can be seen through all information on the home screen: the “About MIRC” for the organization, the “Donate” button, the “Resources” button, and “Past Events” button seeing what the organization has done before.

 

 

A lot of the site is speculation. This is a combination of everything that has been looked at: author, audience, context, and genre. The author is a non-profit organization meaning the want donations from people. The targeted audience are people who would be willing to help immigrants. The most prominent genre present educational and non-profit, and the context is about immigrant’s issues today. It’s not easy to find quick answers to questions on this website. By searching through the site taking many steps, answers are there.

 

Though looking through the website, it’s hard to come away with an author for the site other than MIRC. No descriptions are given for the board members (found under Join MIRC).

 

 

There is no reputation for the work the organization does. It makes it really hard to rely on this organization and trust them if there’s nothing credible to their work. The only thing credible is looking up board members and understanding they are actual people with solid background checks but even then it’s not clear whether they are credible enough for donations.

 

The website is not a good representation for an organization wanting to help immigrants. MIRC needs to update its website like other non-profit organizations to first give it more credibility from first impressions. Then, add more information to its board members so the audience is aware of their personal background and understand who runs the organization. Adding some more photos, videos, or other ways for the audience to interact with the site make its more attracting. For this organization to thrive, it needs to stay up to date with the norms for its website: creating different layouts when viewing the website on cellphones and laptops, updating website layouts so they are not out of date and appear sketchy, and add more aesthetically pleasing colors instead of faded ones that aren’t eye catching. First impressions are everything and MIRC needs to adjust there’s.

 

 

References

“The Death of the Internet.” Popular Mechanics, 7 Feb. 2019, https://www.pop-               ularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a26016334/death-of-the-                     internet/. Accessed 9 Feb. 2019.

MIRC – Maryland Immigrant Rights Coalition. Maryland Immigrant Rights                       Coalition, 2017, http://marylandimmigrantrightscoalition.org/. Accessed 9               Feb. 2019.

“Where is the Internet most popular?” CNN, 19 Aug. 2011, http://www.cnn.c-                  om/2011/WORLD/africa/08/18/country.comparisons.internet.use/index.html.          Accessed 9, Feb. 2019.

Wolfe, Anselee. “Guess how often you use your phone everyday.” Journal of                    Accountancy, 2 Apr. 2018, https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/newslet-              ters/2018/apr/how-often-use-phone-every-day.html. Accessed 9 Feb. 2019.

Jordan Turner
Professor Licastro
English 256
11 February 2019

The “Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service”, LIRS for short, is an non-profit organization in support of refugees and immigrants entering the states. In my analysis of the LIRS’ website, we’ll be going over the five different areas of a rhetorical analysis, “a method of describing the context in which an author wants to communicate his or her purpose or call for action to the intended audience in a genre” (Arola, Sheppard, Ball 22). The different areas we’ll be analyzing are the audience, purpose, context, author, and genre of the website, along with an analysis of the media included.

When understanding the intent, it’s good to start with who the content is intended for, I.e the audience. By taking a look at their navigation bar, the first thing that draws the reader’s eyes, is their orange DONATE button, located on the far right of the navigation bar. This is their primary audience, those who want to help their cause, AKA donators.

Screenshot from https://www.lirs.org

While the audience is who the text is intended for, there may be more than one intended/actual audience (Arola, Sheppard, Ball 22). Their second intended audience are advocates to help stay up-to-date with the legislative issues, while their third intended audience are volunteers. Detailed on the “take action” tab, LIRS goes into depth about how their readers/audience can help.

screenshot from https://www.lirs.org/take-action/

 

 

 

By placing the option to learn more under each, it influences the audience to support and aid LIRS in their mission by doing research and participating in any of these options.

After understanding the intended audience, “it’s important to also consider the range of intentions”(Arola, Sheppard, Ball 23) or their purpose for showing us this information. Considering the information given to us, it’s safe to say that their overall intention for the text is to spread the word about their work and inform the public of their cause. This is further supported by the navigation bar, displayed on each separate page, holding multiple opportunities for the audience to either donate, volunteer, or read more information about their mission and purpose. In a sense, their website is essentially a huge advertisement for their history and what they do

 ..

Screenshots from https://www.lirs.org

and communicates multiple ways that others can help through becoming a volunteer and/or an advocate to help battle legislative issues through their medium/context.

It’s time to now consider the context, “which generally refers to where the text is located, how it is meant to be read, what surrounds it” (Arola, Sheppard, Ball 24). It’s important to think about why the author chose this medium, a website, in comparison to other ones available. After we we’ve gather about the audience and the purpose, the reason why the author chose this medium could’ve been in order to get their intention/purpose across as visually possible without having to bore the audience with multiple paragraphs, running the risk of losing their attention; this is supported by how on each page, there is an image or video.

screenshot from https://www.lirs.org/about/

Before considering the genre of the context, the way the author (implied or actual) establishes credibility, is also something to note when conducting a rhetorical analysis. By including a sub-section within the “about us” tab, the author(s), or the people who run LIRS, establish credibility; Even though it does not go in depth about who they are or their backgrounds, it does include their beliefs.

screenshot from https://www.lirs.org/our-leadership/

It’s important to note that the author(s) established a big reputation as “a champion for refugees and migrants from around the globe” (“Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.”). for almost 80 years. They go into depth about this by saying that they’ve helped over 500,000 refugees and immigrants.

The final part of the rhetorical analysis, is the genre of the context. The text can be defined as a newspaper as a broad definition, but in more specific terms, it can be defined as either journalism, realistic fiction, or as a documentary. It’s defined as a journalism/documentary in the sense that the context details LIRS’ work, mission, and the inclusion of credible news articles to support their information.

Screenshot from https://www.lirs.org/press/

While it’s defined as realistic fiction in the sense that everything that is happening is true to life, from the struggle of being a refugee/immigrant to their work and vision of helping them. The key features that support the genre’s I’ve identified are their inclusion of a blog, press room, and their history.

After finishing the analysis of the website, it’s time to analyze its media and the interface. The most important thing when analyzing the media is to consider the modes and affordances, including: color, font, information architecture, and user experience.

The color of the media presented to us follows a small range throughout (Light blue, Dark blue, orange, and white). the most noticeable is that their navigation bar highlights the DONATE button, drawing their reader’s attention instantly to that. Meanwhile, their font is consistent throughout the website, using only two fonts to keep the reader from getting confused or lost among a possible wide variety of fonts.

Screenshots from https://www.lirs.org

The information architecture is what keeps everything organized and neat in the media. LIRS keeps their information organized in a neat manner, everything is organized until the reader enters different section, each section holding information similar to each other in order to keep the same generally topic of the section consistent. This makes the User experience simple, creating a website that is fairly easy to navigate through, making it simple for reader’s of all ages to use.

Screenshots from https://www.lirs.org

In conclusion, The website of the non-profit organization, “Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service”, gets the author’s point across is a smooth, organized manner. Each section has enough media and information to keep their audience intrigued and influences them to help or provide their services to the cause. By analyzing their website, a reader can effectively understand the purpose and context that the author(s) is educating them about.

Works cited

Arola, Kristin L.; Ball, Cheryl E.; Sheppard, Jennifer. Writer/Designer (Page 22). Bedford/St. Martin’s. Kindle Edition.

“Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.” LIRS, 6 Feb. 2019, www.lirs.org/.

The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is a non-profit organization that specializes in helping incoming refugees get asylum within the United States. In this essay, I will be giving a rhetorical analysis of Lirs.org, which is the home website for the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. In this rhetorical analysis I will be analyzing the website’s author, audience, purpose, context, and genre. I will give support to this analysis with my own words and visual captures from the website to help give a better understanding.

The author of this website is technically not defined, but we can say that the website is a representative of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS). I inferred that the author of this website may be the board of directors for LIRS. The board of directors for LIRS consists of 17 members who are experienced with immigration and refugees. These 17 members are also located throughout the United States.

Who is the intended audience? The primary intended audience for the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is potential donors and/or volunteers. I know this because on the main navigation bar of the website, the only navigation option that is a different color is the donate button. This tells me that they want this specific button to pop out and grab the users attention.

As you can see with the provided screenshot above, all of the other navigation options are the same color/size. But the “donate” option is not only a different color, but also bigger than the rest. This shows that they are trying to grab the attention of potential donors.

The second intended audience for LIRS are the potential refugees that are seeking asylum within the United States. I know this because of the “resources” section on the LIRS website. This section contains a ton of information about how someone could seek LIRS services if they are in need. How do I know this is secondary audience and not a primary? Well, the resources sections is the same color as the rest of the navigation options. Unlike the “donate” button which is designed to stand out to the user.

The purpose of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service website LIRS is to be able to efficiently collect donations and volunteer support. I find this conclusion because as stated above,  in the navigation bar the main section that clearly stands out is the “donate” button. This is them clearly wanting to drive the users attention to the donate button. Another reason why I came to this conclusion is that the entire main homepage is that of a sales pitch. Everything they’re talking about on the home page is essentially giving the user a reason to donate.

The following images above are the examples of them trying to sell themselves to donators. These two information graphics are on the landing page of LIRS’ site. These info graphics clearly are stating their accomplishments and their upside. Each graphic then links to their “about us” section which describes better in detail these accomplishments and what exactly they do at LIRS. In my opinion, these feel like a sales tactic in order for them to gather donations and support.

The medium for the LIRS is the web. I believe the organization chose the web because it offers the largest reach over all the other potential mediums. The web is also completely free and is accessible to anyone who can access a device that can access the internet. You do not have to pay anything to be able to access this site and it’s information. Unlike other mediums like print, newspapers, CDs, etc. where you actually have to buy the service just to get exposed to the information it contains. The site follows a relatively strict color code of blue and white. This gives the sense that it was professionally built, which is also a means of recruiting donations and support. A donator isn’t going to donate to an organization with what seems like a poorly made and designed website. There are a ton of images on this site. Most of them are images of the people that help or have helped in the past, other photos are of immigrants or refugees or are in need of help. This is a play on emotions. It makes the user emotional which then would help them donate or support the cause.

The genre for this website is a non-profit charitable organization. This is a non-profit because it does not use its earnings as profit. I would classify this as a charitable organization because it accepts donations in cash form and uses those donations to help the immigrants and refugees. This website is very similar to other non-profit organizations’ websites because they all follow the same format. They have a professional theme and color scheme. Followed by an image with their navigation bar on top of that image. They also all share the same mentality of making the “donate” buttons or section stand out. The images they use capture emotion and makes the user feel like they need to help so they can make a difference.

I genuinely believe that this website is great. It properly appeals to its primary and secondary audiences respectively, its purpose to clear and simple, and it utilizes the web to the best of its capabilities. I do believe that there are a few changes that I would make to the site to better improve it. One would be to add more images and even a video.

I think they should replace these images on the landing page with a short video that loops and has no sound. This video should consist of some of the organizations day-to-day operations, their accomplishments, and compelling images that appeals to the readers emotion. I think that would greatly improve the ability for the homepage to grab the readers attention. Another change I would make that would improve this site is to offer more “resources”. Although these resources within the “resources” section are good, some of them are vague and do little for the reader. I think if they added some more content that is actually useful to the user, it would greatly improve this section of the site.

 

Citation:

“Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.” LIRS, 6 Feb. 2019, www.lirs.org/.

When a struggle comes of the improper treatment of human beings, assistance and care is a sought after tool in the process of rebuilding the lives of those hurt. Hundreds of nonprofits organizations exist to help immigrants and migrants in a time when being of assistance to these peoples is necessary to the care of humanity. This essay will analyze the ability and design of a nonprofit’s website and their efforts to use an cyber platform to spread their message of humanitarian assistance. The website lirs.org for the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is an online center that utilizes bold imagery and sophisticated text organization to call the people of America to serve and aid those in situations of need through volunteerism, donations, and direct action. 

The intended audience of this web-page is possible donors and volunteers for the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. The homepage of this website is geared towards American English speakers as it explains everything about the organization in English and uses the American iconic image of the Statue of Liberty’s torch. The top bar of web-page, which remains on the site regardless of the page you enter, contains a large orange squared off button that says “DONATE” in all capital letters as well as a section titled “TAKE ACTION” with a pull-down bar that contains linked pages titled “Advocate”, “Host an Event”, “Volunteer”, and “Give” (“Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service”). The push for these actions and the fact that they are made to be found easily illustrates that these actions are what the author wishes the intended audience to notice. As for a secondary audience, this website also provides specific posts and links that give resources to refugees. Examples of these resources include the direct link in the very top right corner of the page that allows those in need of financial assistance to sign-up or sign in to an account for travel loans as well as a top bar “Resources” pull-down. The secondary audience of this web-page also could be those brought into being involved in the website through the social media or social gathering aspects of the organization’s promotions like the speaker events which people can volunteer to host.

The author of this page, the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) organization, does an excellent job at pushing the services and pages they want seen by their audience in a simple and easily accessible way. For example, along with the top bar that provides straightforward navigation of the site’s tools, the home page includes a large section focused on something called “My America”, which includes a button allowing you to read stories of those that have moved to America as refugees. They wish to persuade the reader into joining the cause by assisting in some fashion as recommended on the website. This gives the audience an immediate idea of the importance refugees have to this organization. The webpage includes a section devoted to the organization’s history under the “About Us” profile. LIRS was established in 1939 by Lutheran churches to help and serve people in need during WWII (“Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service”). There is even a book written on LIRS, which highlights their many years of service. They have a vast history in this line of work and have proved themselves to be a truly important asset to asylum-seekers and migrants (“Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service”).

This website allows for a large audience as it is publicly and widely accessible. The use of a common payment input and charity accreditation when you click the “Donate” button allows for simple and safe donations for potential donors. This is an example of how a website is an advantageous context for an organization seeking funds from contributors. As the refugee crisis has been an extensively spoken about topic in recent years, and is only continuing to become more relevant, websites and organizations like LIRS are gaining visitation and possibly support, making of these groups very socially relevant. This web-page is designed well enough to be used properly and efficiently on any device. Someone could pull up the web-page on their phone and see the same information and nearly the same layout as someone searching the site on their desktop computer. This aspect of the design allows for people to research and access by any means necessary in any environmental context. The use of large imagery across the homepage and many other pages is meant to draw the user’s attention to pertinent sections or stories. The use of big and simple text allows for easy reading, making it more accessible to those with vision and reading difficulties.

The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service has many intentions for their web-page. Most importantly, they are seeking assistance from outsiders to broaden their abilities for assisting and serving refugees in need. This is exemplified again in the way the site is setup to have simple access to tools that allow the user to donate their time or efforts to the cause within the top bar of the website. 

LIRS is also looking to help refugees directly. The site’s straightforward navigation of tools to assist refugees gives those with this need who do have possible access to the internet a place to go to figure out what they can do and what help they can receive. Another purpose behind LIRS’s web-page is to educate. This site gives information about their work and about the situations that migrants and asylum seekers are coming from, as listed under their “Our Work” section. This provided information teaches those who are unaware of the issue and the need there is for assistance why helping is necessary (“Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service”). 

The genre of  the LIRS website is humanitarian and nonprofit. Firstly, you can tell the website is a nonprofit simple because it is a charity organization that is categorized as a nonprofit. Though, upon further inspection and comparison, it is easy to see that LIRS is quite similar to that of many other charity organizations, as it implements a simply organized web-page using large images that catch attention, bold, large, and easy to read text, donor and volunteer options, and information about their beginning and mission. We can also tell that LIRS is humanitarian because their work is solely based in assisting with the welfare of immigrants and migrants. There is no other apparent line of work for this organization, it was founded and continues to work for the lives of those who have been misplaced and need help.

Building a online environment to draw attention to a need or purpose can be a challenge to creators. Using proper imagery and text layout to make an online text appealing and generally understandable is an important feat in the world of cyber communications. The people behind LIRS have done a wonderful job of persuading their audience in assisting refugees and migrants of the world through the use of their conveniently and well designed website.

Works Cited:

“Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.” LIRS, 6 Feb. 2019, www.lirs.org/.

Can a website make you feel? Can it make you spend money? Can it make you do something better for the world? You may be thinking of social media, shopping, or researching, but what about a nonprofit site, what would it take for them to reach their and potentially get you to do all three of those things. I am in a course that has given me access to looking into the work of nonprofit organizations and open my eyes to how texts of all types and mediums can impact us without us knowing. We are focusing on refugees and immigrants in America and analyzing Lutheran Immigration and Refugees Service’s (LIRS) website can help show if a website can inspire us to join the movement or if it will be another website forgotten. The LIRS website is successful in encouraging people to donate and volunteer through visuals and gestural modes to spread their goal to a specific audience.

First we begin on the homepage of the LIRS website, what immediately loads without scrolling a few things catch the eye first: big contrasting words, darker colors, and a big donate button. Right away this allows us to think a few things. It leads us to our first clue of the audience, the large donate button in the bold red-orange color shows us that one of their big goals is to make money toward helping refugees, so their audience is people who will donate the money to help or will put in the time and effort to volunteer and help. This also gives us the first glimpse of their purpose, to persuade, the design choices they made to make the donate button visually stand out shows us their commitment to reach their goal through the assistance from their audience. The contrast in this above the fold view is very powerful. The dark navy blue against the bright white allows for emphasis as well as the chosen font, they begun with a thin, almost handwritten font, into a bold, thick, sans serif font. These two big contrast starts a hierarchy, the bigger text in the navy on the left and white on the right is noticed immediately, it gives you a quick glimpse on the company and their mission. The hierarchy also helps us travel the entire entire page, as we begin scrolling through we get more blues, whites, and red-orange, more bold headings, and some repetition. The organization gets into introducing themselves, their mission, and other information before repeating a donate button with a hashtag, this hashtag will connect to the social media side of today’s society. Almost everyone uses social media, and most people are addicted to it, so this will help their organization expand by getting shared to new people with something as simple as a hashtag.

 

After scrolling through the entire home page we can connect that this is a nonprofit website specifically, because it follows the technique and template, a lot of large imagery, big bolded text, saturated colors, and a one column design with a grid like structure. Now that we know general idea of the site that we are on we can continue clicking through the tabs of the top navigation. The first tab is information on the organization, it goes into a mini overview and we get our first, and only, aural mode, a video of the company, their mission, and imagery to entice the viewers emotions for compassion. They also have a side menu with more tabs to get deeper into the history, mission, and the people behind the story. The history is extremely short because they lead you to two different books that help tell their story, I believe it appeals to their credibility, if they have been published in something it helps give you a sense that they have been around, they have made an impact, and others can see that and trust them. Finally, it goes into the leadership and partners where there are a lot of people listed which shows that there was a lot of people who went into this website. The Lutheran Immigration and Refugees Service is our big author, they are the organization held accountable and the focus of the entire website, but a lot of people are a part of this organization to get it where it is. A few names that seemed most important to the website specifically is the board chair, Michael Rinehart, vice chair, Linda Stoterau, interim president and CEO, Pat Nichols, director for marketing and communications, Danielle Bernard, and director of outreach, Folabi Olagbaju. A lot of people and a lot of Lutheran churches have been involved in this organization and it shows even more into their credibility and history.

The next tab is more information about their mission, goal, and the job they do in details. This is part of the persuasion in the purpose of the website. If they show you the people they are helping with images, the details on the people they help, and they even have an entire sub tab devoted to the children to really push the viewer to feel empathy for those they are trying to help. It also shows a part of another purpose they have, to educate. They are trying to give you as much information as possible about the issue they are battling and their solutions to build into the persuasive purpose. The more informed the viewer is the more willing they usually are to help. Another tab is to inform the viewer on how they can help, donation, advocating, volunteering, and holding events. The purpose of this website is on every single tab, they again are trying to convince you to join their cause, and it is very obvious with the big, navy headings separating the page, and it repeated as sub tabs and links.

The tab with resources also has the purpose twined into it well specifically for the churches and how they can put their organization and goal into the churches congregation. I spotted a minor tweak, every tab has a header with an image, overlaid with the title of the tab, and the sub tabs as a menu on the left. For this tab it didn’t quite work out with the left menu. Putting a navigation menu on the left is important for viewers looking on a phone or tablet, which does help us know they want readers to be able to view this on any device anywhere, but for this longer title and the subject of the image being left aligned the menu covers up part of both making the three elements not work as well together. The tab also helps us analyze the audience again, this shows more into the secondary audience, the lutheran churches. The entire tab is dedicated to how they specifically can help with refugees and spreading the word allowing us to believe it is a focus for them to branch to more. They are hoping for an audience that is religious and faithful and this tab alone represents that hope. The final two tabs are articles and blogs on more information about refugees and current updates on the issue in America. This and the copyright at the bottom of the site gives us the information that LIRS keeps their information up to date which allows us to look more into their credibility in a positive way and the context of this website in the fact that it is constantly revolving to stay with the times.

The website is very cohesive and has repetitive pieces to help with that. The navigation and footer does not change with the contrasting donate button, LIRS logo, social media buttons, and other links. They also repeat the email newsletter at the bottom of every page which helps show they are reaching out to their audience and allowing the audience to engage and feel a part of the community quickly. This is a strong gestural quality that other sites do not have. They also use the thin, handwritten text every now and then which makes it feel a bit more personable and helps those texts to stand out compared to all the bold, geometric text. They did well in a lot, but they do have some things to work on. I believe pulling in more of an aural mode with video could help push more of trying to encourage empathy from the viewers. This will also boost their gestural and visual modes allowing the website to develop more in multiple areas. Another element I would suggest would be to add more into the information on their history and the people involved. That tab seemed short and dry, instead of putting details in their history they put a publication that cost money. It looks good to be a part of a publication, but adding more history on their own site would allow people to trust them more. Also adding more of the people working for the organization, images, quotes, who they are, would make it more personable and allow the readers to gain more of a connection with the people inside then just stating names and jobs.

Looking through the entire Lutheran Immigration and Refugees Service website, their purpose is strongly shown and that was the goal in the website to persuade more people at a wider range to join in the movement. They had some weakness, for example while other refugees nonprofit sites have a tab specifically to those they are trying to help, LIRS does not have resources for them, but they had a lot of strength in their cohesiveness, visuals of contrast and imagery that pulls at the audiences emotions, and filling the site with information to educate. I believe those strengths were stronger than the weaknesses and could potentially hook the audiences into donating and volunteering to the cause. With the images of the children in need it can make you feel, with the bold donate button on every page it could persuade you to want to donate your money, and with its informative and convincing qualities maybe they can get you to join and in the end help someone in need.

Citations:

Lutheran Immigration and Refugees Service. 2019. www.lirs.org/. Accessed February 10 2019.