Week Eight Assignment: Semiotic Analysis

Write a post or two that explores how semiotic analysis might help us plan our content, Web pages and sites.

As a web content editor of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, my job duties center on simply and clearly presenting information online on our various business and education programs. So it is fitting that www.ncbiotech.org and other sites I work on would benefit from semiotic analysis in the area of navigation.

The challenge is to create signals allowing the user to easily navigate through a Web site. Just as a newspaper reporter must summarize an event using clear language, the Web writer must design pages with the audience in mind to eliminate any confusion relating to the site’s navigational hierarchy. (And that means no “mystery meat” navigation.)

Web writers must also exercise cultural sensitivity in selecting and using icons and metaphors. For instance, when thinking of hyperlink colors, the Web writer should understand the color red symbolizes valor and might in Malaysia, but many African countries equate red with death. (Carroll, “Writing for Digital Media” Study Book)

Semiotics can be valuable in allowing the web editor to choose the proper colors, words and symbols to link web pages together. I have realized semiotics is about making choices—using visual (graphics and illustrations) and verbal cues (hypertexts and headlines) to guide the visitor through the site.

In his research paper, The Relevance of Semiotics to the Internet: How Web Designers use Metaphors in Web Development” Grant Sherson summarized a relevant study by Elissa D. Smilowitz :

“Web pages that use good integrated metaphors have been shown to communicate better facilitate performance and significantly reduce functional errors by those using it.”

A Web writer or designer who chooses to use commonly used icons will convey a clearer message. Looking at my Microsoft Word toolbar, I see scissors signifying “cut.” A printer icon “to print.” A sheet of paper for “new document.” Success in communicating on the World Wide Web ultimately rests in designing symbols all visitors can understand like the home, right and left arrow keys found on most browsers.

Semiotics analysis can also help to expand our vocabulary to look beyond pictorial symbols. In his web blog, web designer Mark Boulton discussed the organization of information writing as he quoted a friend:

“’Words matter’, she said. ‘Probably more than anything. You can have a bad design, but if the words are right and in the right place, the user will generally find what they need’ … the conclusion from this conversation was that words are also signs on the web. The right word in the right place – isn’t that what navigation is all about? Context.”