[Sigia-l] Re: is there a word (screw icons, we're talkin' semiotics)

[Austin Govella]

> Christina Wodtke asked:
>>for a set of icons that represent aspects of a thing....

Haven't we been calling these facets?

If we want a word for facets specifically expressed as 
icons, or icons expressly representing facets, then I don't 
think we have one. If you'll excuse the facetious 
facetization of your iconographic representational 
semantics, we could make one, or a phrase! Iconographically 
Represented Facets (IRFs!).

:-D



Pabini Gabriel-Petit wrote:
> These are symbols rather than icons....

Actually, an icon is an image that represents something else 
on a computer screen. A symbol can be anything (and is 
everything), where an icon is a small graphic.

Icons express ideas (becoming pictographs), or features and 
options. They're icons in ID parlance because that's what 
the practice has come to call them.

Beyond screen world, they're called symbols (symbol signs 
and graphical symbols by AIGA and ISO, respectively), but as 
symbols they refer to the picture itself, and not the 
picture as seen on a screen (the symbol in a specific medium).

I'd suggest a symbol stuck on a wall in an airport is 
signage, and a symbol on a computer interface (incl. 
website) is an icon.



Erik Dahl wrote:
 > ... I find it interesting to look to the field of
 > semiotics for clarification.

I find it interesting we get stuck in "semiotics" and 
neglect the following 100 years of critical theory (a dig at 
all of us).

 > ... an icon is a sign in which the
 > signifier has a direct (read non-arbitrary),
 > simulative connection to its signified or referent.

For example, the last 100 years have clearly illuminated 
that no signifier has any direct connection to the 
signified, simulative (?) or otherwise. We arbitrarily 
interpret everything.

As IAs, we focus on the arbitrary nature of signifiers. Card 
sorts are little more than semiological fishing expeditions 
judging the edges of ponds with no edges.

Labels are signifiers; features and content are the signifieds.

The last 100 years have delineated how individual beliefs 
and biases (our politics) influence our arbitrary 
interpretations of the world around us (when I see a 
mockingbird, I think of the Boy Scouts).

In IA, we see these biases in action. Librarians, designers, 
programmers, and writers create architectures reeking of 
their backgrounds.

Our understanding of our personal biases, and the knowledge 
they are no more or less valid than the biases of people we 
design for, fuels the rationale for user-centered design: if 
we want to communicate, it's best we communicate in the way 
our audience will listen.

--
Austin