“People ignore design that ignores people.” — Frank Chimero
I believe the responsibility of an Information and Interface Designer, in principle, is to provide a seamless user experience. Usability and efficiency are both key constructs within user design. The task of creating this is very much harmonious and congruent with understanding human behavior. This is because of the reality that designers create interfaces that humans navigate and connect with. The same understanding of human behavior and perception can also be seen in the principles of semiotics. I believe the employment of semiotics within information and interface design is advantageous in creating usable and efficient outcomes. Therefore I am going to analyze the principles behind semiotics, alongside the ideas of Roland Barthes, to display that these concepts are useful when applied by information and interface designers. Human behavior is commonly stigmatized as solely being social performance but is also can be defined as 'the response of individuals or groups of humans to internal and external stimuli.' (En.wikipedia.org, 2019) When users navigate an interface or system they are constantly responding to it. Ferdinand de Saussure noticed this when he developed the concept of semiotics. He realized that vast concepts can be distilled down to signs and symbols. These prompt signs can carry information efficiently without the need for copious amounts of text or explanation. For example, the literal view of a rose (otherwise known as a signifier in semiology) is a red rose with a green stem. However, the meaning behind a rose for much would-be romance and love. And so the rose signifies and represents meanings other than its literal sense.
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The International Symbol of Access is an ideal example of displaying the functionality behind signs. The piece was designed by Susanne Koefoed in 1968 to display accessibility for those who are handicapped. This is used most commonly to display access improvement for those in wheelchairs. I.e - a ramp. ('International Symbol Of Access') ”Signs take the form of words, images, sounds, odors, flavors, acts or objects, but such things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning.'('Semiotics For Beginners: Signs”) The sign in the literal sense is a series of shapes put together. However, as humans, we have invested meaning within signs. The meaning and association are its functions of providing knowledge of what is accessible to those who are handicapped. This is due to us being conditioned by seeing the sign regularly or by being taught about the sign. Either way, the sign is a perfect example of proving that signs have no intrinsic meaning. However, once they are invested in meaning they are ideal at conveying meaning quickly and efficiently. Within Roland Barthes' book 'Mythologies' he unraveled the use of signs and explained them as 'Myths'. Myths are a second-order semiotic system. For example, Barthes used a magazine cover that showed a black soldier saluting the French flag.
I have annotated the example to further aid my explanation. The first order language of the cover was the signifier, the signifier is the image of the soldier. Which denotes an event (saluting the flag). However, Barthes went further into this concept and explained that the image had a second order of language: The Signified. Which was that the image could also have another signifier and mean more than one thing. He developed that the image signifies a soldier saluting a flag and stated that it could also show France as being a multi-ethnic empire. 'I see very well what it signifies to me: that France is a great Empire, that all her sons, without any color discrimination, faithfully serve under her flag, and that there is no better answer to the detractors of alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this Negro in serving his so-called oppressors. ' (BARTHES and LAVERS) The ideas of Roland Barthes here show that semiotics doesn’t have to be quite literal examples but can convey immense amounts of meaning. This belief that visual aid can present meaning with no use of words is so beneficial when it comes to Interface Design. As Albert Einstein famously said, “Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple.” The premise of user design is to create functional interfaces that are easy to navigate. Excellent information and interface design is about clarifying the user journey — and so implies the clearing of all and any elements that aren’t absolutely necessary.
Elements that definitely aren't necessary are words. Spending too much time when navigating an interface can result in fatiguing a user. This is the last thing you'd want as a designer. The intention of your product is to provide the utmost enjoyable experience for the user. The use of semiotics and signs enables designers to compress meaning into succinct visual aid without having to bore the user by using text. So not only does semiotics aid in the efficiency of design but it also allows for the design to be more widely understood. Semiotics is widely known for its linguistic use but can be translated into the design field. There are often barriers when designing, for an instance: language. The link between spoken or written representations and their signified object is itself entirely arbitrary. Regardless of language, this idea operates on the same object. An object could be called anything. For an instance, slang words could have a completely different name to an object but still have the same meaning attached. For example, In cockney rhyming slang; 'Apples and Pears' means stairs. Linguistic representation is just convention. Semiotics as a visual vehicle to convey meaning allows the signified to widely understand without the need for language. One designer in particular who displays this idea in her work well is Hana Tanimura in her Ebola prevention project; in conjunction with UNICEF and Médecins Sans Frontières. Tanimura recognized, that printed material, deployed by non-governmental organizations teaching individuals how to avoid contracting the virus, was often congested with text and hard to understand. This would be a factor contributing to a fault in effectively preventing the virus, especially because these materials were distributed in areas of Western Africa with low literacy rates.
The project took this information on board and created a language-agnostic iconographic system designed to be as universal as possible, easy to reproduce, and legible in black and white.' ('Ebola Prevention — Hana Tanimura') Meaning people within these areas could understand supplies considerably easier due to the help of visual aids and clearer composition making the project substantially more effective and viable. ('Ebola Prevention — Hana Tanimura') Within User Experience and Design, I believe objectives are not solely to produce innovative and boundary-pushing work; whilst this is still very much important, but to also allow critical information or services to be accessible to all. Semiotics and further deconstruction of meaning enable designers to execute this. Roland Barthes similarly distrusts the use of language within his essay: 'Death of the Author'. Within his writings, Barthes prompts that the author holds no government over their reader due to the fact that words do not convey meaning or depth, other than what the reader experiences. He argues that reading and critiquing texts solely depends on understanding the authors' identity. In essence, this means, that the text is not entirely nor is at all means as it is not personable. The reader does not hold the same historical context, religion, political views, ethnicity, or personal attributes as the author to be able to retract any relation from the work. Barthes believed that reading may be conventional but has flaws in the organic meaning of experience. 'To give a text an author'(Seymour) and designate a singular, analogous interpretation to it 'is to impose a limit on that text'.(Seymour) In essence, the only person to entirely understand and distill meaning from a text is the author. Therefore, I believe that semiotics and their principles, not just their linguistic aspects but also their derivative values allow for more meaningful interactions.
Using this system of unbiased experience can be translated into User Interface by using design and visual aids to allow the user to interpret for themselves. Meaning every user has a personable and unadulterated user experience, without the attached aspects of the author. In conclusion, I believe the use of semiology and the ideas of Roland Barthes would be deeply advantageous if applied by Information and Interface designers. Purely due to the fact that these ideals interlink with the main constructs and principles of Interface Design. These are ease, usability, and universal understanding. The use of signs allows the designer to portray meaning without the length and aesthetic unpleasantness of text. For an instance, Photoshop would not be as enjoyable to use if there was no use of icons. The usability and ease of the software would be disruptive in creating an outcome. Barthes's theory is useful in noting when designing, as he suggests universal understanding cannot be possessed if there is text involved. Farouk Y. Seif, the Executive Director of the Semiotic Society of America sums this up perfectly when he said 'What appeals to the emotion and feeling, the visceral as we call it, is not necessarily what we see, but what we feel. You can listen to a piece of music, you cannot see the music, but you can listen to it and it creates that sensory desire to act or listen and enjoy the melody,” In summary, if we do not have meaning in design we do not have anything.
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