Abstract
Web interface signs (e.g., navigational link, button, image, command affordance, thumbnails, etc.) are complicated as well as crucial elements of web user interfaces. Interface signs act as a means of users’ interaction and communication artifacts with a web application. Designing intuitive interface signs contributes to improve the users’ understanding, satisfaction, communicability of web interfaces, and the like. Sign design principles are semiotics by nature; since semiotics is the doctrine of signs. Therefore, the fundamental objective of this study was to reveal the features of user intuitive interface signs for boosting web usability from a semiotics point of view. In order to achieve this research goal, a systematic empirical study was conducted on 404 web signs and revealed a number of semiotics considerations for designing user intuitive web interface signs to improve applications’ usability.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bolchini, D., Chatterji, R., Speroni, M.: Developing heuristics for the semiotics inspection of websites. In: 27th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication (SIGDOC 2009), Indiana, USA, pp. 67–71. ACM Press (2009)
de Souze, C.S.: The Semiotic Engineering of Human-Computer Interaction. The MIT Press, Cambridge (2005)
de Souza, C.S.: Semiotic engineering: bringing designers and users together at interaction time. Interdisciplinary Journal of Human-Computer Interaction - Interacting with Computers 17(3), 317–341 (2005)
de Souza, C.S., Barbosa, S.D.J., Prates, R.O.: A semiotics engineering approach to user interface design. Journal of Knowledge Based System 14(8), 461–465 (2011)
Islam, M.N., Ali, M., Al-Mamun, A., Islam, M.: Semiotics Explorations on Designing the Information Intensive Web Interfaces. International Arab Journal of Information Technology 7(1), 45–54 (2010)
Peirce, C.S.: Collected Writings. In: Hartshorne, C., Weiss, P., Burks, A. (eds.). Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1932-1952)
de Castro Salgado, L.C., de Souza, C.S., Leitão, C.F.: A semiotic inspection of ICDL. In: de Lucena, C.J.P. (ed.) Monografias em Ciência da Computação, No. 31/09, Brazil (2009) ISSN: 0103-9741
de Souza, C.S., Leitão, C.F., Prates, R.O., da Silva, E.J.: The Semiotic Inspection Method. In: VII Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems (IHC 2006), Natal, RN, Brazil, pp. 148–157. ACM Press (2006)
de Souza, C.S., Cypher, A.: Semiotic Engineering in Practice: Redesigning the CoScripter Interface. In: Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces (AVI 2008), pp. 165–172. ACM Press, Napoli (2008)
Islam, M.N.: Beyond Users’ Inaccurate Interpretations of Web Interface Signs: A Semiotic Perception. In: The IFIP 13th International Conference on Informatics and Semiotics in Organizations (ICISO 2011), Leeuwarden, Netherlands, pp. 31–40 (2011)
Islam, M.N.: A Semiotics Perspective to web Usability: An Empirical case Study. In: IADIS International Conference on Interface and Human Computer Interaction (IHCI 2011), pp. 19–28. IADIS Publisher (2011)
Islam, M.N., Tétard, F., Reijonen, P., Tarkkanen, K.: Integrating Semiotics Perception in Usability Testing: A Light Weighted Experiment on an e-Health Application. In: IADIS International Conference on Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction 2012 (IHCI 2012), pp. 141–148. IADIS Publisher (2012)
Islam, M.N.: Towards Designing Users’ Intuitive Web Interface. In: 6th International Conference on Complex, Intelligent, and Software Intensive Systems (CISIS 2012), Italy, pp. 513–518. IEEE Computer Society (2012)
Morris, C.: Foundations of the Theory of Signs. In: International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, vol. 1(2). University of Chicago Press (1938)
Ferreira, J., Barr, P., Noble, J.: The Semiotics of User Interface Redesign. In: 6th Australasian User Interface Conference (AUIC 2005), Newcastle, NSW, Australia (2005)
Neumuller, M.: Hypertext Semiotics in the Commercialized Internet, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (2001)
Saussure, F.D.: Course in General Linguistics (trans. Harris, R.). Duckworth, London (1983)
Robert, S., Robert, B., Sandy, F.L.: New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics: Structuralism. Post-Structuralism and Beyond. Routledge, Taylor &Francies, London (1992)
Andersen, P.: Computer Semiotics. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems 4, 3–30 (1992)
Frege, G.: Begriffsschrift (1879); English Translation. In: van Heijenoort, J. (ed.) From Frege to Gödel, pp. 1–82. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1967)
Speroni, M.: Mastering the Semiotics of Information-Intensive Web Interfaces, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Faculty of Communication Sciences, University of Lugano, Swizerland (2006)
Triacca, L., Speroni, M., Ramani, C.: Understanding semiotics issues in usability evaluation of cultural heritage websites: the DICE case study. Studies in Communication Sciences 5(1), 75–92 (2005)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Islam, M.N. (2012). Semiotics Perception towards Designing Users’ Intuitive Web User Interface: A Study on Interface Signs. In: Rahman, H., Mesquita, A., Ramos, I., Pernici, B. (eds) Knowledge and Technologies in Innovative Information Systems. MCIS 2012. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 129. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33244-9_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33244-9_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-33243-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-33244-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)