Interface Design in the Context of Visual Culture and...

MS 1301 Introduction to Computer Graphics

Interface Design in the Context ofVisual Culture and Semiotics

Interface Design in the Context of Visual Culture and Semiotics

MS 1301 Introduction to Computer Graphics blabla


Title

Visual Culture

N. Mirzeoff (1999):

• Pervasiveness of images in everydaylife

• Visual technologies increasinglyregulate our lives

• Image production of per se invisibleand non-representable objects/ideas(simulation)

• We increasingly use visuality as asource of reference for making meaningof our lives (identity)




Title

Semiotics

• Semiotics: the study of signs and theirmeanings

• Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)

• Semiotics is about all cultural artefactsthat have an encoded meaning

• Good introduction: David Chandler's"Semiotics for Beginners”http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/




Title

The Sign

• A sign is made up of two components:the signifier -that which is perceived(heard or seen) - and the signified, the‘message’

• The signifier is also referred to as thematerial aspect (a spoken or writtenword, a picture, an icon) and thesignified is also referred to as the mentalconcept, the idea of something.

• Meaning of a sign is only possible indifferentiation to another sign. There is noinherent meaning.




Title

The Arbitrariness of a Sign

• The signifier is not engendered by thesignified

• Signifier and Signified have conventionalrelationships

• “No sign makes sense on its own butonly in relation to other signs. Bothsignifier and signified are purely relationalentities” (Saussure cited in Chandler1981)

• “Seeing is not believing butinterpreting.” (Mirzoeff 1999, p.14)




Title

Icon, Index, Symbol

• Pierce: Classification of Signs

- iconic signs (resemble the object orperson that they signify)

- indexical sign (gives some concretereference to the signified object)

- symbolic signs (are completelyarbitrary)




Title

Connotation & Myth

• Connotation: ‘associative relationship’ orsecond meaning (signified) of a signifier

"The myths which suffuse our lives areinsidious precisely because they appear sonatural.” (Barthes)

• Roland Barthes (1915-1980):Mythologies (1957)




Title

Making References

Visual Synecdoche

Using a part (Statue of Liberty) torepresent the whole

Works vice versa as well




Title

Making References

Visual Metonym

Using an image that evokesassociation with the intendedsubject (yellow cab = New York)




Title

Making References

Visual Metaphor

Using a well known signifier (anapple) in order to refer to anunknown signified (the idea of afresh and bright city).

(see Ambrose 2005)




Title

Icons

• Icon: an "abstract or pictorialrepresentation of ideas, objects or actions(see Sassoon 1997, p.12)

• Icons can be iconic, indexical orsymbolic




Title

Icons

• In Computing, metaphors facilitate theunderstanding of complex tasks andimprove the speed of learning

• Using spatial metaphors: e.g. Browsing,navigating the Web, going back, forward,being ‘home’

• Critique: metaphors are constrainingidea of the associated signified. Usingmetaphors is like “using old half-ideas ascrutches” (Ted Nelson), quoted in Preece2002, p.57)




Title

Logos

• A Logo encapsulates the essence of anobject or action in a recognisable andspecific form

• Logos: “half hidden, half recognizable”(Heraclitus)

• Logos can be iconic, symbolic, indexicalor even abstract. They can be made fromwords or letters only, they can be purelypictorial/graphic information or acombination of both.




Title

Concluding Thoughts

Visual Culture is the embedding context of what we are doingin this module: producing computer graphics and pieces ofvisual communication

The study of Semiotics delivers tools and vocabulary in order toread, interpret and deconstruct the complexity of signs andvisual artefacts.

Icons and logos are established signs in our visual everydayexperience. They are often carefully constructed and cancommunicate complex messages effectively and subtly.

Interface Design in the Context of Visual Culture and...

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