Boxes And Arrows : The Design Behind the Design

Article Idea:

A semantic evaluation of interfaces

suggested by Riccardo Fusaroli on 2006/10/06

The problem:
How to effectively analyse the meaning emerging from an interface. Accessing www.boxesandarrows.com for the first time, which meaning configurations will emerge, and how will they be used by the user to orient his/her actions?

Several semiotic approaches have been developed to analyse short stories, movies, and advertising. What we will try to do here is to use one of these methods to show how it is possible to effectively describe the meaning figures that emerge from an interface.

The article will detail an approach to the meaning of the site:
1) tracking the gaze orientation
2) defining the salient elements and their motives (i.e. the coalescences of meaning that they tend to spread)
3) defining the semantic grounds that these motives spread and the ways that they can be stabilized in a configuration of “themes” used to understand the single element
4) detailing the way that the different systems (colors, spatial regions, words) contribute to this process.

The approach displayed has been used in several design processes to:
a) prepare user tests, already having an idea of the possible issues
b) evaluate previous designs comparing the results with user tests
c) quick and cheap evaluation of websites when budgets don’t allow for proper user tests