Person sees, feels, hears a communication

                Person thinks, "What is this, and what does it mean?"

WE COMMUNICATE MUCH OF THE REALITY AROUND US SYMBOLICALLY, making semiotics, the study of signs, a critical area of research for computer interface designers.

There has been much debate about what constitutes a sign. Charles Sanders Pierce suggested a typology which still serves as the basis for much of the research in the field. 

Icon
When referring to computer interfaces, the term icon is everywhere. However, the icons that you and I refer to may not be what Pierce had in mind. Take the control panel icon. According to Pierce, it should have a similarity to the thing referred to. It doesn't, and is really, in Pierce's schema, a symbol.

Index
For an index, we need look no further than the pointing hand found on all web applications or even a mouse pointer. Each indicates position or proximity by virtue of its pointing. Hypertext links are another example of an index.

Symbols
Symbols are easy. Symbols stand for something other than the symbol itself by virtue of purely arbitrary and conventional agreement. 

In a more recent approach to the question of definition, James Knowlton (1964) begins with the sign, according to Anglin (1996), "a stimulus intentionally produced for the purpose of making reference to some other object or concept." Knowlton divided signs into digital signs, which have a purely arbitrary relationship to their referent, such as a number or a word, and iconic signs; drawings, maps, and other such representations.

Typically, we think of a sign as a visual element that possesses meaning, or, as Solomon (1988) says, "objects, marks, events, models, or pictures that serve as bearers of extractable knowledge." There is, however, a more inclusive range of signs that go beyond images. Three in particular, color, sound, and movement, can provide significant information.

Although color displays have been standard equipment on personal computers for several years, it's proven difficult to get any consensus on what meanings to attach to different colors. This may reflect the fact that that colors are most easily used to signify emotional states and up to this point the computer is rarely accused of inciting an emotional experience.

Painting has historically employed color in a range of symbolic meanings. The painters of the Renaissance were particularly adept at using symbolic colors to convey information. A number of examples of this can be found in the Dictionary of Symbolism at the University of Michigan website.

Its is too easy to assume that the sound of music is symbolic. But often music is evocative of feelings, not that "extractable knowledge" that Solomon talks about. However, there is research indicating that sounds can impart knowledge. Ohala (1984) found that there may be factors which do inherently convey information. According to him, there is a correlation between vowel sounds and associations of physical size, even cross-linguistically. The following table looks at the relationship between vowel sound and the physical size of an object and shows the vowel sounds /i/ (as in "teeny") and /e/ are "small" and the vowel sounds /a/ and /o/ are "large."

Symbolic animation describes the use of animation to transmit information to the viewer. Many of these animations are borrowed from the world of cartoon and caricature drawing. Many of the animated GIFs so popular now on the Web, fall into this category:

Since the use of symbolic animation on the computer is relatively recent compared to the use of symbols in other media. Lloyd Rieber, among others, has done significant research on computer animation and learning, and his website has a number of valuable observations on the topic.

Karl Weimer, Graduate Student
SDSU Educational Technology

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