Comments on Semiotics: A Primer for Designers

Claudio Vandi — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:02:17 GMT

Hi, thank you for the interesting article which i could spot only today (while it’s on the website since 2003) I agree with you that Semiotics can be of some use for designers, not only as a mysterious language to describe simple things, but as a theory to understand how people interpret the world in order to act on it. For this reason I agree with Rob that Peirce is a key reference for semiotics. I would like to hear your opinion on what i think could be the role for semiotics in GUI design. According to my idea (resumed in an idea about metaphors http://www.boxesandarrows.com/idea/view/3722) semiotics can go beyond the “look and feel” to analyze the user’s action in its practical unfolding.
If we choose our categories wisely (that for me means mostly Peirce categories), then semiotics can say something on how design matters in the continuous action of a user carrying out some task. I can assure you that “practical application of semiotic theory” are far from being absent.
For example semiotics can help us to sketch a theory of how the user learns the interface while using it, and not only by recognizing the referent of a single sign. This is the difference between a semiotics of signs as taxonomy and a semiotic of signs as action oriented elements. To be used, to be “acted”, is the key role of interfaces. Pragmatics teaches us that there is no meaning out of a pragmatic horizon, out of an actual practice. This leads to a semiotic theory that can say more than what is needed to recognize a sign as a sign of something.

ahmad reza rafiei — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:38 GMT

my dear
please send for me.
i need a information of semiology in architect and articl

Chick Foxgrover — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:38 GMT

Thanks Challis for bringing this up and Rob for correcting the impression that Saussure originated Semiotics. And in general, I believe the study of the pragmatists and other philosophers from Pierce through Dewey and Mead on to Rorty, Searle and Habermas (to name a few) is fascinating reading for anyone involved in communications and designing such things as “semantic webs” “meaningful experiences” working with things like “mental models” etc. They had a great deal of interesting things to say about alot of what we take for granted (or misunderstand) when we speak about these things.

Rob Harrap — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:38 GMT

Just a clarification. Semiotics did not in fact originate with Saussure. It was ‘rediscovered’ by the European academic community in the writings of the founder of Pragmatism, Charles Sanders Peirce. Peirce was more interested in understanding ‘understanding’ and science than he was in design. He also developed the notion of predicates in logic (also developed at about the same time by Frege in Europe), did fundamental work in statistics and geodesy, and hugely influenced William James and consequently John Dewey.
In any event, an enjoyable article, thanks, ....
Rob

Claudio Aguirre-Bianchi — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:38 GMT

Semiotics (or semiology) is far more than an academic luxury.

Well understood, it will help designers to embedd significance and meaning in perceptible objects (ie visual objects).

Moreover, the semiology of the webb and the semiology of multimedia are necessary approaches to understand the media we are working with and its possibilities/limitations.

I think Challis Hodge should have focused more on the enbeddment of meaning in perceptible forms than in definitions. But that is probable another article. Who wants to write it?

Clau

maggie hendrie — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:38 GMT

I think that as designers (IA, Visual, Interaction, etc,) our job is to create meaningful experiences for users; semiotics is all about understanding how “meaning” is created. Academically, one of the issues semiotics faces as a field of study is that it focuses on “textualisation” when we work in a “hyeprtext” world. This article doesn’t address current use of semiotics but gives a short overview of the field. I think that anyone working in the interactive field can learn a lot from it’s techniques. To say-
“Other than making work for academics, there’s little practical application of semiotic theory” is rather niave- I’ve been worked as both a semiotician and as an information architect for quite a few years and think the challenge is to take an analytical technique and use it as a creative tool, but it can be done.

The comment “I would liken semiotics to the mechanics of language not philosophy” is ironic- one of the best primers in semiotics is by Umberto Eco – “Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language”. It gives a good explanation of the different experience of a dictionary versus an encyclopedia- which is a metaphor I’ve used with clients when they ask why we don’t just bundle content any old way. We need to look at users as co-creators of meaning, co-creators of the user experience not as passive recipients of our sytems, no matter how well designed. Any tool that helps us seems like a step foward to me.

David Heller — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:37 GMT

Not being a visual designer, I found this article interesting and new. Lets remember that not everyone in the B&A readership is of one type and many audiences get to learn from one another.

That being said, it seems to me that the importance of understanding semiotics is similar to the importance of understanding form, structure, layout, type, iconography. It is just one piece of a grander puzzle. But the more pieces you have in that puzzle the better the final resolution (or solution) will be for those looking at it.

Thanx, Challis.
—dave

Larry Irons — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:37 GMT

The importance of semiotics to design seems to reduce to the issue of whether we, as human beings, can directly respond to signs. People like Aaron Marcus so no. They claim we need a language to give the signs context, i.e., metaphors. On the other hand, people like Brian Donaghey draw from neuropsychology to argue that come key smells and senses are keyed directly by representations. Moreover, the latter position maintains that feelings and emotions can be triggered by understanding those direct representations.

Any way you look at it though, the question is of basic significance to experience design.

kb — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:37 GMT

The most important thing for designers to take away from semiotics is the notion that as soon as you publish your work, it is completely beyond you. It will be interpreted not in any way that you intended it to, but rather as the user wishes to.

The “death of the designer” would be a more appropriate article to write, borrowing heavily on Barthes “the death of the author”:

http://www.eiu.edu/~literary/4950/barthes.htm

Of course, all this is leading to a more post-structuralist worldview in which meaning is just as divorced from structure as from any kind of designerly intention.

In all, perhaps this article could have expanded more on how this relates to designers rather than just what semoitics “is”.

-kb

harumph — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:37 GMT

I agree. Other than making work for academics, there’s little practical application of semiotic theory. After reducing this to “make things look like what they mean as well as you can”, is there much more to get out of it?

Besides, quoting things like “The study of signs is the study of the construction and maintenance of reality” as a dictum for design only reinforces the black-turtlenecked, litcrit-theory-clutching image of the pretentious designer. You honestly think you’re engaged in the “maintenence of reality” in any way different than everyone else?

-challis — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:37 GMT

Can a carpenter build houses without any deep understanding of lumber? Yes. Can a carpenter build better houses if he understands the biology of trees and the process of creating lumber? Yes. Why? Because he can anticipate things that he could not otherwise conceive.

I would liken semiotics to the mechanics of language not philosophy. And I agree that it’s interesting. Problem is we designers have been tuned off by the overblown use of $50 words and the general elitism in the field. We need to get under the hood and get our hands on this stuff (no extra charge for the goofy metaphors).

RS — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:37 GMT

Semiotics is interesting, but saying it’s relevant to design is like saying one should study the philosophy of language to write better fiction.