T. Rowe Price Website Analysis

Website Analysis

Introduction

T. Rowe Price is an investment company whose mission is to “help clients around the world achieve their long-term investment goals (corporate.troweprice).” They are headquartered right here in Baltimore, but have offices all over the world. Close to 5000 people are employed by T. Rowe Price, which manages close to $400 billion in assets. Individuals and large corporations alike are helped by the investment strategies of T. Rowe Price.

The website is intended for people around the world, as there are offices in London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Singapore among others. Overall, the website is very well structured, and it is very easy to find exactly what one is looking for. It is immediately apparent as to what their mission is, who they are able to help, and why they have been so successful. As a potential consumer, T. Rowe Price is very inviting and sells themselves very strongly to viewers. A weakness of their website I would say is the design of the home page. Much of the text is light blue on a dark blue background which can be difficult to see. Also, the background picture doesn’t seem to serve any purpose, and is a little blurry.

Figure 1

Rhetorical Situation

T. Rowe Price did do a variation of the rhetorical situation when creating their website. As Johnson-Sheehan explains, “understanding the rhetorical situation means gaining a firm grasp of your document’s subject, purpose, readers, and context of use (Ch. 2, Pg. 20).” On the site’s homepage, viewers can immediately see the company’s purpose in the form of a mission statement. Also in Chapter 2, Johnson-Sheehan says that a document’s purpose is probably the most important as it explains what you want the document to achieve (Pg. 21). Right below