The Semiotics of e-Commerce: Looking for New Insights

The SMDF (Shared Meanings Design Framework) offers a semiotics of e-commerce with an HCI perspective.

Semiotics has been called the science of signs. More specifically it is the discipline which connects meaning, meaning making, communication and culture through an understanding of acts of signification. There are a great variety of semiotic discourses and traditions, most noticeably that of Peirce (1931), Saussure (1966), and Eco (1976). There have been various attempts to apply the semiotic paradigm to the field of IT. These include the work of Anderson (1997), Liu (2000), Nadin (1997) and Stamper (1997). Various collaborative computer-semiotic groups are active such as the Shared Meanings Design Framework (see below), Semiotics for the HCI Community, and the Semiotics Engineering Research Group. Much of this work has thus far been directed towards gaining insights into the development and expression of requirements of socio-technical systems using various soft methodologies, frameworks and tools.

A key focal point of many of these approaches is to refine our notions of the human computer "interface", through the evolution of novel ways of assisting its design, deployment and evaluation from a semiotic perspective. Cross cultural design (localisation or globalisation) has already proved to be a fertile application area.

For an interface to match user expectations it is ideally essential to address domain specific issues and indeed to anticipate how these are to be addressed in the eventual novel application at the earliest (conceptual) stage of development. The domain of interest (e-commerce applications and their associated technological mediators) is complex and ever developing. Existing e-channels (such as iTV, WAP, 2.5/3G mobile phones, PDA and PC) are merging and new channels may indeed be expected to emerge. Any novel method should ideally be invariant of channel or device.

Semiotic insights and semiotic interpretations of computer based texts have proven strengths in identifying and interpreting signs embedded in textual narratives of various kinds, and connecting these to wider social and cultural user settings and cultural phenomena. By "text" we mean: magazines, newspapers, books, poetry, literature, film and music, religious settings and gatherings and high-street shopping iconography, as well as newer texts such as the Internet, including ecommerce websites. By "sign" we mean in the present context, familiar kinds of website content now ubiquitously embedded in commercial e-commerce (PC, mobile, iTV) interfaces.

Semiotic analysis presents us with a novel paradigm for discovering, or rather revealing, so called hidden user requirements and expectations in novel interactive products. The techniques involve concentrating on what might be loosely called the general look and feel (ie. meta-level stylistics) of an interface as well as detailed design elements such as choice of specific content. The semiotic paradigm has been extensively investigated in relation to both requirements engineering aspects, (Liu, 2002) as well as in relation to identifying various detailed website content features, using various informal methods such as expert site audit, mind-mapping and benchmarking content against fairly loose sets of criteria (French (2001); French 2002). Indeed, one aim of the proposed research will be to actively seek to develop a detailed sign-taxonomy for ecommerce sites so as to aid such work using heterogeneous devices and delivery channels. However, in relation to this research we are less concerned - at least initially - with engaging in detailed system design activities downstream (where typically a prototype is iteratively refined via client feedback) and more interested in up-stream user anticipatory activities.

We seek to anticipate (pre-align) an early application concept to a particular target audience. Essentially we seek to pre-align a novel application to what we call a user's normative whole-world sign experience. Further, we wish to anticipate the look and feel of an application and to match this to a user's existing normative sign world (eg. teenage fashion, computer games, high street branding, modalities, cartoon characters, devices such as cameras, mobile phones, DVDs or other consumer goods) through seeking to define their world view - their Weltanschauung.

Semiotic "lifestyle" analysis involves carrying out a detailed audit of a wide range of computer based and other "texts" (interfaces) which the users presently encounter in their day-to-day lives. The proposed method draws inspiration from the pioneering and on-going initiative by Nadin (2002) and others, who are actively seeking to raise the profile of user anticipatory activities in their widest sense. It is proposed here that a paradigm shift is needed from specification to discovery, and from detailed requirements analysis of tangible known requirements - to anticipatory activities, designed to uncover hidden or at least unarticulated, or semi-articulated user knowledge and needs.

The essential point of principle here being that pre-alignment of any novel iTV (or other e-product innovation) can be achieved by seeking to develop a best of breed user interface style which reflects existing user-application normative sign experiences. The technique is semiotic in the sense that is recognises that users give meanings to signs by a process of infinite semiosis (decoding and assignment of meanings). This semiosis process is determined by the user's pre-existing experiences of mapping semantics to signs, as well as individual cognitive factors as well as wider cultural and social contexts. The aim is to capture 'just enough' of the user's world to understand their de-coding of signs embedded in e-interfaces. We are not seeking to carry out a detailed and exhaustive ethnographic user study as such however. The nature of the proposed data collection is rich and qualitative but also simple and intuitive.

References
Andersen, P. (1997) A Theory of Computer Semiotics, Cambridge University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-521-44868-9.
Eco, U. (1976) A Theory of Semiotics, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, USA
French, T. (2002) eCulture texts and urban change cultural change in Taiwan: a view through the semiotic lens, Imperium on-line Journal of Post-colonial Studies (May 2002).
French, T., Polovina, S. (2001) WAP through the semiotic lens, Procs. Mobilize Int. Workshop: interventions in the social, cultural and interactional analysis of mobility, ubiquity and information and communication technology, Surrey University, May 29-30th.
Liu, Kecheng (2002) Semiotics for Information Systems Engineering – Reduce theGap between Specification, design, and implementation, 1st Int. Workshop on interpretative Approaches to Information Systems & Computing Research, p. 62-65. Brunel University. ISBN 1-902316-27-4.
Liu, Kecheng (2000) Semiotics in Information Systems Engineering, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-59335-2.
Nadin M., (2002) Anticipation – a spooky computation, Lecture given at Stanford University, available on line from: http://www.code.uniwuppertal.de/uk/computational_design/who/nadin/lectures/anticipa.html
Nadin, M., (1997) A Semiotic Introduction to Systems Design, Cambridge University Press
Peirce, C. (1931-1958), ed. Hartshorne, C. and Weiss, P., Collected Paper of C.S. Peirce. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Saussure, Ferdinand de. (1966) Course in General Linguistics, New York: McGraw-Hill.

Some of these publications can be downloaded from the website below.

Tim French
University of Luton
optimum-web.co.uk

Associated Link: The Shared Meanings Design Framework

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