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Semiotic Engineering Glossary

By Gerd Waloszek, SAP AG, User Experience – 12/21/2005

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

This glossary list terms, mostly from semiotics and HCI, that are helpful to understand Clarisse Sieckenius de Souza's book The Semiotic Engineering of Human-Computer Interaction. In same cases, I preferred definitions that were given by de Souza instead of more general definitions because her definitions help to set certain concepts apart from those introduced in the book. In other cases, I included different definitions for your reference.

References and definitions taken from de Souza's book are indicated by "(de Souza)." The majority of other definitions was taken from www.wikipedia.org, indicated by "(wikipedia)."

Please note that this glossary is neither intended to be be complete nor exhaustive.

 

A

Abduction, Abductive Reasoning

Abduction, or abductive reasoning, is the process of reasoning to the best explanations. In other words, it is the reasoning process that starts from a set of facts and derives their most likely explanations. The term abduction is sometimes used to mean just the generation of hypotheses to explain observations or conclusions, but the former definition is more common both in philosophy and computing. (wikipedia)

Activity Theory

Activity theory (AT) is a Soviet psychological meta-theory, paradigm, or framework, with its roots in behaviorism. Its founders were Alexei Nikolaevich Leontyev, and S. L. Rubinshtein (1889-1960). It became one of the major psychological approaches in in the former USSR, being widely used in both theoretical and applied psychology, in areas such as the education, training, ergonomics, and work psychology.

Activity theory, except for a few publications in western journals, remained unknown outside the Soviet Union until the mid-1980s, when it was picked up by Scandinavian researchers. This resulted in a reformulation of activity theory. Some changes were introduced, apparently by importing notions from Human-Computer Interaction theory. The application of activity theory to information systems derives from the work of Bonnie Nardi and Kari Kuutti. (wikipedia, adapted)

Affordance

An affordance is a property of an object, or a feature of the immediate environment, that indicates how to interface with that object or feature. The empty space within an open doorway, for instance, affords movement across that threshold. A couch affords the possibility of sitting down on it.

Psychologist James J. Gibson introduced the term in 1966. In 1988, Donald Norman refined the term to refer to perceived affordance, as opposed to an objective affordance that is directly perceived. This distinction makes the concept dependent not only on the physical capabilities of the actors, but their goals, plans, values, beliefs and interests. (wikipedia, adapted)

 

C

Channel

In communications, a channel is the route which a message follows, as it is transmitted between a communication source and a receiver. (wikipedia)

Code

In communications, a code is a rule for converting a piece of information (for example, a letter, word, or phrase) into another form or representation, not necessarily of the same sort. (wikipedia)

Communication

Communication is the process through which, for a variety of purposes, sign producers (i.e., signification system users in this specific role) choose to express intended meanings by exploring the possibilities of existing signification systems or, occasionally, by resorting to non-systematized signs, which they invent or use in unpredicted ways. (Eco, cited by de Souza)

Communication is the process of exchanging information, usually via a common system of symbols. (wikipedia)

Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC)

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is any form of communication between two or more individual people who interact and/or influence each other via separate computers through the Internet or a network connection – using social software. CMC does not include the methods by which two computers communicate, but rather how people communicate via computers. It is only peripherally concerned with any common work product created. (wikipedia)

See also Computer-Supported Collaborative/Cooperative Work (CSCW)

Computer-Supported Collaborative/Cooperative Work (CSCW)

The term computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) was first coined by Irene Greif and Cashman in 1984, at a workshop attended by individuals interested in using technology to support people in their work. According to Carstensen and Schmidt (2002), CSCW addresses "how collaborative activities and their coordination can be supported by means of computer systems." On the one hand, many authors consider that CSCW and groupware are synonyms. Ellis (1993) defines groupware as "computer-based systems that support groups of people engaged in a common task (or goal) and that provide an interface to a shared environment." On the other hand, different authors claim that while groupware refers to real computer-based systems, CSCW focuses on the study of tools and techniques of groupware as well as their psychological, social, and organizational effects. The definition of Wilson (1991) expresses the difference between these two concepts: CSCW [is] a generic term, which combines the understanding of the way people work in groups with the enabling technologies of computer networking, and associated hardware, software, services and techniques. (wikipedia)

See also Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC)

Computing

The discipline of computing is the systematic study of algorithmic processes that describe and transform information: their theory, analysis, design, efficiency, implementation, and application. The fundamental question underlying all the computing is "What can be (efficiently) automated?" (ACM, cited in wikipedia)

Context

The context of an event includes the circumstances and conditions which "surround" it; the context of a word, sentence, or longer utterance or text includes the words that "surround" it. (wikipedia)

 

D

Decision Making

Decision making is the cognitive process of selecting a course of action from among multiple alternatives. Every decision-making produces a final choice. It can be an action or an opinion. It begins when we need to do something but we do not know what. Therefore decision-making is a reasoning process which can be rational or irrational. (wikipedia)

Designer's Deputy

Short: The designer's deputy is a communication agent that can tell the designer's message to the user.

Long: Both application designers and HCI designers are trying to represent their understanding and their intent in such a way that the users of their products can see what they mean. The designer's one-shot message to users (one-way communication) is progressively unfolded and interpreted by the users as they communicate with the system. For metacommunication to proceed consistently and cohesively, the system must speak for the designer. The system is thus the designer's deputy – a communication agent that can tell the designer's message.

The designer-to-user message can be roughly paraphrased in the following textual schema:

Here is my understanding of who you are, what I've learned you want or need to do, in which preferred ways, and why. This is the system that I have therefore designed for you, and this is the way you can or should use it in order to fulfill a range of purposes that fall within this vision. (de Souza, adapted)

 

E

Epistemic

Pertaining to epistemology.

Epistemic Tools, Epistemological Tools

Tools that leverage our use of intellectual artifacts. (de Souza)

Epistemology

Epistemology, from the Greek words episteme (knowledge) and logos (word/speech) is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, origin and scope of knowledge. Historically, it has been one of the most investigated and most debated of all philosophical subjects. Much of this debate has focused on analyzing the nature and variety of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth and belief. Much of this discussion concerns the justification of knowledge claims. (wikipedia)

Ethnography, Ethnographic Studies

Ethnography (from the Greek ethnos = nation and graphein = writing) refers to the qualitative description of human social phenomena, based on fieldwork. Ethnography is a holistic research method founded in the idea that a system's properties cannot necessarily be accurately understood independently of each other. (wikipedia)

 

F

Firstness

According to Peirce, firstness is one of three categories of semiotic interest, the category of undiffentiated qualitative experience. (de Souza, adapted)

See also Secondness, Thirdness

 

H

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

HCI is a particular case of computer-mediated human computer communication. All interactive computer-based artifacts are meant to express a design vision according to an engineered signification system. (de Souza)

 

I

Icon, Iconic Signs

An icon (from Greek eikon, "image") is an image, picture, or representation; it is a sign or likeness that stands for an object by signifying or representing it, or by analogy, as in semiotics; in computers an icon is a symbol on the monitor used to signify a command; by extension, icon is also used, particularly in modern popular culture, in the general sense of symbol – i.e. a name, face, picture or even a person readily recognized as having some well-known significance or embodying certain qualities.

According to Peirce, iconic signs are those where the representation brings out the firstness of its referent.

See also Firstness, Index, Symbol

Illocution, Illocutor, Illocutionary Act

An illocutionary act is to use a locution with a certain force. It is an act performed in saying something, in contrast with a locution, the act of saying something

An illocutionary act is any speech act that amounts to stating, questioning, commanding, promising, and so on, or: is to use a locution with a certain force. It is an act performed in saying something, as contrasted with a perlocutionary act, the act of saying something, the locution. (wikipedia, adapted)

An illocutionary act refers to the user's intent. (de Souza)

See also Locution, Perlocution

Index, Indexical Signs

According to Peirce, indexical signs are those where the representation brings out the secondness of its referent.

See also Secondness, Icon, Symbol

Interlocutor

In everyday use, interlocutor means the person with whom someone is speaking; one's conversational partner. (wikipedia)

 

L

Locution

A locutionary act is the act of saying something. It comprises three acts: a phonetic act (a phone – a series of bodily movements which result in the production of a certain sound), a phatic act (a pheme – an utterance also conforms to the lexical and grammatical conventions of the respective language), and a rhetic act (a rheme – the more or less definite sense and reference of the utterance). (wikipedia, adapted)

 

M

Meaning

A meaning is a set of thoughts that people take symbols to have. Meanings can do many things, such as provoke a certain idea, or denote a certain real-world entity. (wikipedia)

Message

Message in its most general meaning is the object of communication. Depending on the context, the term may apply to both the information contents and its actual presentation.

In the communications discipline, a message is information which is sent from a source to a receiver. (wikipedia)

Metacommunication

Communication about communication.

Metaphor

In language, a metaphor (from the Greek: metapherin) is a rhetorical trope defined as a direct comparison between two seemingly unrelated subjects. In a metaphor, a first object is described as being a second object. Through this description it is implied that the first object has some of the qualities of the second. In this way, the first object can be economically described because implicit and explicit attributes from the second object can be used to fill in the description of the first. (wikipedia)

Metonymy

A metonymy represents a concept by means of another that is semantically contiguous to it (part for the whole, or vice versa; cause for effect, or vice versa; container for the content, or vice versa; ...). (de Souza)

In rhetoric and cognitive linguistics, metonymy is the use of a single characteristic to identify a more complex entity. It is also known as denominatio or pars pro toto (part for the whole). (wikipedia)

 

N

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Natural language processing (NLP) is a subfield of artificial intelligence and linguistics. It studies the problems inherent in the processing and manipulation of natural language, and, natural language understanding devoted to making computers "understand" statements written in human languages. (wikipedia)

 

O

Ontology

In philosophy, ontology is the most fundamental branch of metaphysics. It studies being or existence as well as the basic categories thereof – trying to find out what entities and what types of entities exist. Ontology has strong implications for the conceptions of reality.

In information science, an ontology is the product of an attempt to formulate an exhaustive and rigorous conceptual schema about a domain. This domain does not have to be the complete knowledge of that topic, but purely a domain of interest decided upon by the creator of the ontology. (wikipedia)

An ontology expresses the categories of things that exist, from which follows a series of relations among them. In the case of HCI, this ontology will be limited to the categories of interest for a comprehensive account of the phenomena that semiotic engineering tries to account for. (de Souza, adapted)

 

P

Perlocution, Perlocutionary Act

A perlocutionary act is the resulting effect of language use (de Souza) or an act performed by saying something. Notice that if one successfully performs a perlocution, one also succeeds in performing both an illocution and a locution. (wikipedia)

A perlocutionary act is any speech act that amounts to persuading, convincing, scaring, enlightening, inspiring, or otherwise getting someone to do or realize something. When examining perlocutionary acts, the effect in the hearer or reader is emphasized. Unlike illocutionary acts, which stress some linguistic performance, a perlocutionary act's effect is in some sense external to the performance. (wikipedia)

Pragmatics

Pragmatics is generally the study of natural language understanding, and specifically the study of how context influences the interpretation of meanings. It is a subfield of linguistics.
Context here must be interpreted as situation as it may include any imaginable extralinguistic factor, including social, environmental, and psychological factors. (wikipedia)

Problem Solving

Problem solving forms part of thinking. It occurs if an organism or an artificial intelligence system does not know how to proceed from a given state to a desired goal state. It is part of the larger problem process that includes problem finding and problem shaping. (wikipedia)

Proposition

Proposition is a term used in logic to describe the content of assertions. An assertion is content which may be taken as being true or false. Assertions are non-linguistic abstractions from the linguistic sentences that constitute an assertion. The nature of propositions is highly controversial amongst philosophers, many of whom are skeptical about the existence of propositions. Many logicians prefer to avoid use of the term proposition in favor of using sentences. (wikipedia)

 

R

Receiver

A receiver is one of the basic concepts of communication and information processing. Receivers are objects which receive message data that are transmitted, via a channel, from a source (or sender). (analogue to wikipedia's definition of a source)

Reflection-in-Action

According to the reflection-in-action perspective (Donald Schön, 1983), practical knowledge involves the capacity to name the elements present in problematic situations and frame them as problems. These problems are often unique and usually unstable, unlike the general kind of problems assumed to exist in other paradigms, such as the technical rationality perspective. In the reflection-in-action view, technical professionals must be equipped with epistemological tools that can help them raise useful hypotheses, experiment with different candidate solutions and evaluate results. (de Souza, adapted)

Representation, Knowledge Representation

Knowledge representation is needed for library classification and for processing concepts in an information system. In the field of artificial intelligence, problem solving can be simplified by an appropriate choice of knowledge representation. Representing the knowledge in one way may make the solution simple, while an unfortunate choice of representation may make the solution difficult or obscure; the analogy is to make computations in Hindu-Arabic numerals or in Roman numerals; long division is simpler in one and harder in the other. Likewise, there is no representation that can serve all purposes or make every problem equally approachable. (wikipedia)

S

Secondness

According to Peirce, secondness is one of three categories of semiotic interest, the category of strict associations between two phenomena. (de Souza, adapted)

See also Firstness, Thirdness

Semiology

Synonym for Semiotocs

Semiosis

Semiosis is the making or production of meaning. The term was introduced by Charles Peirce (1839-1914) to describe the process of signification within the science of signs now termed semiology. (wikipedia)

Semiosis is the unlimited sign-production process triggered by the presence of representations that stand for any quantity or quality of meanings. The process is unlimited in the sense that no one can fully predict its duration, its path, its content, and so on. (de Souza)

Unlimited semiosis says that the meaning of a representation cannot be defined as a fixed object or class of objects, although, for there being a representation at all, there must be an object or class of objects that requires a representation. (de Souza)

Semiotic Engineering

Semiotic engineering is an attempt to bring together semiotics and HCI in a concise and consistent way, so as to support new knowledge organization and discovery, the establishment of useful research methods for analysis and synthesis, and also the derivation of theoretically sound tools for professional training and practice (de Souza).

The goals of semiotic engineering as a theory of HCI are to present an extensive and distinctive characterization of HCI, to provide a consistent ontology from which frameworks and models of particular aspects of HCI can be derived, and to spell out epistemolowgical and methodological constraints and conditions applicable to the spectrum of research that the theory can be expected to support.

A semiotic theory of HCI, such as the one proposed by semiotic engineering, has to incorporate signification, communication, and unlimited semiosis in its ontology. (de Souza)

Semiotics

Semiotics – or semiology – is the study of signs, both individually and grouped in sign systems, and includes the study of how meaning is made and understood. Semioticians also sometimes examine how organisms, no matter how big or small, make predictions about and adapt to their semiotic niche in the world (see Semiosis). Semiotics theorizes at a general level about signs, while the study of the communication of information in living organisms is covered in biosemiotics. (wikipedia)

Semiotics is the study of signs, signification processes, and how signs and signification take part in communication. (de Souza).

Semiotics is generally concerned with "meaning-making and representation in many forms" (Chandler) and with "everything that can be taken as sign" (Eco). (de Souza)

According to de Souza (2005), some contemporary semioticians define semiotics as a theory of culture (Eco; Danesi and Peron).

Semiotics is the discipline devoted to investigating signification and communication. (Eco, cited by de Souza)
See also Communication, Signification

Sender

See Source

Sign

As sign is "anything that stands for something else, to somebody, in some respect or capacity" (Peirce, city by de Souza).

According to Peirce, a sign has three components: a representation (a perceptible form, called representamen), its referent (a conceivable content, called object), and its meaning (called interpretand or simply interpretation). (de Souza, adapted)

The meaning of a sign is defined by Peirce as another sign.

Signal

In information theory, a signal is the sequence of states of a communications channel that encodes a message, at the transmitter end of the channel.

Signification

Signification is the process through which certain systems of signs are established by virtue of social and cultural conventions adopted by the users, who are interpreters and producers of such signs. (Eco, cited by de Souza)

Signification System

System for signification.

Source

A source is one of the basic concepts of communication and information processing. Sources (or senders) are objects which encode message data and transmit the information, via a channel, to one or more observers (or receivers). (wikipedia)

Speech Act, Speech Act Theory

The essence of speech act theory (Searle, Austin) is that language is not only used to represent (perceived) states of reality, namely to make statements about what and how the world is or is not, but also, and perhaps more extensively, to have some effect on this very world, to do things. (de Souza)

Searle proposed five basic classes of speech acts: assertives, directives, declaratives, commissives, and expressives.

Symbol, Symbolic Sign

A symbol, in its basic sense, is a conventional representation of a concept or quantity; i.e., an idea, object, concept, quality, etc. (wikipedia)

According to Peirce, symbolic signs are those where the representation brings out the thirdness of its referent.

See also Thirdness, Icon, Index

 

T

Thirdness

According to Peirce, thirdness is one of three categories of semiotic interest, the category of mediated relations. (de Souza, adapted)

See also Firstness, Secondness

 

U

User-Centered Design (UCD)

In user-centered design (UCD), designers try to identify as precisely as possible what the users want and need. User and task analysis allow designers to form a design model that matches such wants and needs. The design model is projected by the system image, which users must understand and interact with to achieve their goals. (de Souza)

 

V

Visual Language

Visual language deals with the presentation and expression of thinking and feeling in visual terms. It extends from the pioneering work of Rudolph Arnheim to the studies by Robert Horn and can include the use of visual expression in the method of active imagination developed by Carl Jung. Visual language can include words, images and shapes in its content. It stems from the proposition that we can "draw" our thinking as well as verbalize it. (wikipedia)

 

References

 

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