1. The Semiotic Engineering of Human-Computer Interaction Section I Foundation
Chapter 1 Introduction

2. Conversation between two people interacting with a computer
“How do I send picture by ?”
“Click on Attach button,
or paper clip icon, select the picture and click attach”
The instructions above are clear
and well understood by people
that use computer everyday.

3. Decompose the dialogue into tokens using this interface:
A Token is an specific element in the dialogue.

4. The user has to navigate with mouse to the button with word “Attach”
But the actual dialog that is happening between user and computer is more complex:
The user has to navigate with mouse to the button with word “Attach”
Left clicking on mouse when the arrow on the computer screen is over the correct button.
A new dialog window will appear.
The user then has to navigate to the correct folder where the picture in the form of file is stored, by opening (click or double click with mouse) one folder at the time.
To select a picture the user has to click on the picture file and the file will be highlighted in dark blue.
Then the user has to click on “Open” button and it should attach the file to the .

5. User Centered Design vs Semiotic Design

6. Section 1.1 Semiotic Theories of Human Computer Interaction
Semiotic Study of:
Signs
Signification processes, and
How signs and signification take part in communication
HCI artifacts are intellectual constructs
-result of choices and decisions rather than predictable natural laws.
Semiotic central themes of investigation:
meaning assignment,
meaning codification, and
the forms, ways, and effects of meaning in communication
– date to Greek classics

7. Semiotic in HCI Graphical user interfaces Visual languages Sign System
Produced and perpetuated by cultures
Thus.. A theory of culture

8. Semiotic Engineering
Bring together semiotic and HCI in a concise and consistent way to:
Support new knowledge organization and discovery
Establishment of useful research methods for analysis and synthesis
Derivation of tools for training and practice

9. Semiotics involves
Signification and meaning-related processes between:

10. Engineering Support HCI artifacts
Design
Construction
of artifacts
HCI artifacts
result of choices and decisions guided by reasoning, sense making, and technical skills

11. HCI artifacts are communicated as signs
We must be able to
Interpret,
Learn,
Use, and
Adapt to various contexts.
Goal produce meaningful interactive computer system discourse

12. Epistemological
The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity
In HCI
How knowledge is gained, analyzed, tested, and used or rejected

13. Signs Concrete objective stance Encoded in signification systems
Psychological, social, and cultural contexts.
Encoded in signification systems
To communicate attitudes, intents, and contents
Clients Owners
Users
Attitude Intent
content
HCI artifact
Developers
Designers Technical Support

14. SmartFTP Interface signs Resulting signs
Meaning
Resulting signs
From interaction
Incorporates a complex signification system

15. 1.2 The Semiotic Engineering Framework
Designers must tell users what they mean by the artifact they have created,
And users are expected to understand and respond to what they are being told….
Via the artifact’s interface
Words,
Graphics,
Behavior,
Online help,
And explanations.
Interlocutors in the communication process

16. Reflective Theory Reflective theory explicitly
brings designers to HCI processes
&
assigns then an ontological position
Ontology -a rigorous and exhaustive organization of some knowledge domain that is usually hierarchical and contains all the relevant entities and their relations

17. User-Centered design compared to semiotic engineering

18. 1.3 Theorizing about Software as an Intellectual Artifact
What is an intellectual artifact?
Artifact nonnatural objects created
Concrete = forks, knife (material artifacts)
Abstract = safety measures (procedural artifacts preventing accidents)
Physical purpose = chairs
Mental purpose = truth tables
Intellectual Artifacts are:
It encodes a particular understanding or interpretation of a problem situation.
It also encodes a particular set of solutions for the perceived problem situation.
The encoding of both the problem situation and the corresponding solutions is fundamentally linguistic (based on a system)

19. Intellectual Artifacts (cont…)
Of symbols-verbal, visual, aural or other- that can be interpreted by consistent semantic rules); and
The artifact’s ultimate purpose can only be completely achieved by its users if they can formulate it within the linguistic system in which the artifacts is encoded.
Producer----> Intellectual artifacts----> Consumer
Same Language (genuine system of symbols)

20. What is a Language? System of Symbols Definition of Vocabulary Grammar
Set of semantic rules.
We will have an entire lecture on this in the next lecture.

21. Grade Proposal Points for SWE 4783 User Interaction Engineering
    test a,b,final (drop one) each                400 total     signs project (125) and presentation (50)      175 total     usability evaluation(75) presentation (25)     100 total     attendance (125) WEBS (50)                         175 total                                                                    850 overall points
Proposal:
225 points each for the test  3 test           points for the signs project          points for the Usability evaluation         points for attendance and 150 webs   Total 1275 pts