The Shared Meanings Design Framework (SMDF):
Semiotics in Interdisciplinary Design and Development at Last?

Simon Polovina, Department of Computer Science, UHmailto:

ABSTRACT

SMDF (‘The Shared Meaning Design Framework’) is a novel user-centred methodology initially developed to support the development of e-commerce web portals (French, Polovina, and Vile, 1999). The approach offers support to developers by focussing on the interdisciplinary ‘shared-meanings’ of a human-computer interface i.e. both the intended and unintended meanings transmitted via the deployment of computer-based signs. This approach is derived explicitly from a semiotic paradigm (Andersen, 1997) and is still under development. Accordingly, a mailbase discussion group has recently been established ( and a web-site has been established ( rationale behind SMDF is essentially, that the received meanings of an interface perceived by an end-user are dependent on a number of semiotic layers. These semiotic layers comprise HCI surface level features, the work context of the user, and the culture and language of the user. Support is offered for each of these layers via a familiar life-cycle approach as shown in Figure 1.

  1. Elicitation phase
/ Apply semiotic analysis of stakeholders. Semiotic Engine to capture stakeholder needs (Shared Meanings Elicitation)
  1. Human Computer Interface Design
/ Undertake detailed semiotic analysis of signs and sign systems employed (Semiotics ofHCI)
  1. Quantify surface level complexity
/ Use state notation to verify interface complexity in terms of user actions and system states (State Notation/other selected visual formalisms)
  1. Identify Tools
/ Identify semiotic compatible development tools (Semiotic Compatible Checklist)
  1. HCI Implementation
/ Carry out empirical validation of the interface (Semiotic EnhancedUsability Metrics)
  1. Post-Implementation
/ Use a Semiotic Review Checklist to confirm that the system is maintainable.

Figure 1: SMDF Stage by Stage

We are currently seeking to extend SMDF to consider the semiotic validity of some of the various languages being used to build and re-engineer web-site portals through the use of STA (Semiotic Textual Analysis). Other work in progress includes: a version of SMDF specifically tailored for Museum web-site portals (Wernick and Polovina, 2000); adapting SMDF for accessibility needs ( Cross-cultural, interdisciplinaryweb-design remains perhaps the most intractable yet potentially exploitable area for semiotic approaches to address (French and Smith, 2000).

Accordingly, we wish to alert the interdisciplinarydesign methodologies community to the possible role semiotics might have to play in helping us to build web-sites which are inclusive and which support the internationalisation of e-commerce trading activities. That is, debate ways in which we can usefully deploy semiotics, an area too long neglected in design and development.

REFERENCES

Andersen, B. (1997) ‘Semiotics of Computing’, Cambridge University Press.

French, T.S. and Smith, A. (2000) ‘Can semiotics us help to meet the challenge of cross-cultural Web Design?' IWIPS 2000: Second International Workshop on Internationalisation of Products and Systems
July 13-15, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, in press.

French, T., Polovina, S. and Vile, A. (1999) Semiotics for E-commerce: Shared Meanings and Generative Futures’, Proceedings of 10th BIT Conference 1999, ISDN 0-905304-30.

Nadin et. al. (2000), ‘CHI’2000 Workshop on Semiotic Approaches to User Interface Design’, April 2000. (

Vile, A.; French, Tim; Polovina, Simon (2000) ‘e-Finance: Strategy, Architecture and Semiotic’, 11th BIT Conference, in press.

Wernick, P.D. and Polovina, S. (2000) ‘SMDF for Museum Web-sites, Culture Track ,WWW9 Conference Amsterdam, Spring 2000 (