Product Semiotic Design Ideas (I)

Abstract: Product semiotics aims at "based on machine functions" and proposes a "people-oriented" design concept to adapt to the product design in the microelectronics era. It proposes several product semantic design perspectives to adapt the product to human visual understanding and operation. It also believes that the main reason for user error is due to errors in product design.

Keywords: semiotics product semiotics product semantics

In the late 1960s, Western design circles generally questioned the design guiding ideology of “shape following function”. Functionalism has a series of limitations. With functionalism as the guiding ideology, the daily necessities designed are basically rational geometric forms. Straight lines, rectangles, and even circular arcs are rarely used, and the colors are mostly white. This kind of product is cold and lacks human touch. In addition, the meaning of "shape following function" is: the shape does not have a function, it must follow the function of the product. In fact, the shape itself has a certain function, such as the function of the circle is to rotate, other things can be placed on the plane, then what function should be considered when choosing the shape? Secondly, in the face of the emergence of a large number of new electronic products in the 1960s, the concept of formal beauty has lost its meaning. Electronic products are like a “black box” and people cannot perceive its internal functions. Designers should use their external design to make electronic products “ "Transparency" enables people to see its internal functions and working conditions. Such design requirements cannot be expressed in terms of formal beauty. Finally, formal beauty design ideas are difficult to deal with complex information. Many people began to explore new design theories. Some people proposed "shape following aesthetics" and some people proposed "shape following costs." The underlying ideas of these theories are still under the “formal beauty” framework. Eventually, people understand that the formal beauty design ideas cannot make the appearance design problems of electronic products, and must seek new theoretical foundations for design. In this era background, product semiotics have emerged. It comes from linguistic theory: semiotics.

1. Semiotics.

People exchange information and take action by dealing with symbols. The doctrine for studying these symbols is called semiotics. Semiotics is a theoretical method of communication. Its purpose is to establish widely applicable communication rules. Semiotics mainly includes information symbols, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Information symbols mainly study symbol, index, icon, and signal. The syntactic research symbol constitutes the rules of the sentence, semantics studies the meaning of the sentence, and pragmatics studies its application effect. Semiotics suggests that humans use language to express actions, called verbal actions, which are directly related to human thinking, communication, and actions. Later research focused on two issues: human understanding and the meaning of information. In the late 1960s semiotics began to become the main method of studying media theory. Participating in semiotic studies are linguists, philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, computer experts, industrial design experts, and estheticians and educators. For most semiotic researchers, it is not an independent discipline but a study of symbols and communication methods in various cultures, arts, literature, mass media, computer human-machine interfaces. Some people studied the function of art paintings from the perspective of semiology, and some have established graphic design semiotics, product design semiotics, and computer semiotics.

The study of semiotics is very extensive and has a great influence on computer design. Only the American philosopher J. Searle is mentioned here. In 1969 he published a book, Discourse Action, which was published in 1979 as "Expression and Meaning." In 1980 he wrote an article "Intention of intention and action." On the basis of these works, he integrated his book "Intentionality" published in 1983. The book includes ten chapters: the nature of the state of intent, the intentionality of perception, intention and action, and the causal relationship of intention. Potential context, meaning, intentional state, and stressful expression of discourse actions, meaning in the mind, proper naming and intentionality, postscript: intentionality and brain. His series of books and articles mainly discussed people's purposeful actions. He proposed the relationship between intentions, motivations, and actions. He proposed discourse actions. These two theories have a great influence on European information design, thinking tools (computers, etc.) design and industrial design.

2. Product Semiotics.

In the 1960s Ulm Institute of Modelling in Germany discussed the application of semiotics. Later, the Germans's Helga Juegen (Hans Juegen Lannoch) and Klaus Krippendorff of the United States explicitly proposed product semiotics. The latter graduated at Ulm College of Modeling in 1962 as a professor of exchange studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Their introductory articles on product semantics were posted on the German magazine Die Form 108/109, 1984/85. In 1985, a three-day workshop was held in the Netherlands to introduce product semantics. More than 40 industrial designers from various countries participated in the study. In 1990, the Helsinki University of Technology held a three-day workshop by Kleindorf, Lon Nox, Brachit (Collaborative Industrial Design Manager of Philippe, Netherlands), and Michael Schneider (industrial design of the American Academy of Fine Arts, Krone) Head of department), product semiotics introduced by Lenf Lange (professor of industrial design in Germany), Philippe Holland introduced the effect of applying product semantics to change product image. Through these workshops, product semiotics was extended to Europe.

Klebendorf defines product semantics as a new field. It is concerned with the meaning of the design object, the symbolic symbol of the object, and what psychological, social, and cultural environment it uses. In the design approach, it combines the symbolic function of the product with traditional geometric, labor, and technical aesthetics, using metaphor and semantic methods.

Product semantics proposes new design ideas. It has two purposes. The first purpose: to adapt the product and the machine to the human visual understanding and operation process. In oral communication, people understand each other through the meaning of words. In visual communication, people understand each other through the visual and semantic symbols of eyes and eyes. When manipulating the use of machine products, people understand the machine through the shape, color, and texture of the product components. For example, visual experience suggests that round things can be rotated, and red is often dangerous at the factory. How can you recognize the door of the house? Through its shape, position, and structure. If you point to a wall and say, "This is the door," no one will believe it. People have already combined the shape of the door, the structure of the door, the position of the door, and its meaning with the purpose of the people's actions and the methods of action. The overall form thus formed is called the symbol of action. In the same way, kettles, bicycles, kitchen knives, etc. all have a symbol of action. Designers should use the symbolic meanings of these things in the design of machines, tools, and products so that the user can understand its functions and its operation methods at a glance, without having to spend a lot of effort re-learning unfamiliar methods of operation. The concept of product semiotics used in electronic product design is to proceed from the symbolic meaning of human visual communication so that each product, every handle, knob, and handle will “talk” through structure, shape, color, Materials, locations to symbolize their own meaning, "tell" their own purpose of operation and accurate operation methods. In other words, through the design, the purpose and operation method of the product should be self-explanatory, and no additional instructions are required to explain its function and operation method. How can we achieve this goal in human-machine interface design? Product Semantics believes that the symbolic meaning of these geometric shapes is that people learn and accumulate from a large number of life experiences. This is the geometric wealth of knowledge for each person. Designers should adopt shapes, colors, materials, and positions that people are already familiar with. The combination of to represent the operation and make its operation process in line with the characteristics of human actions.

The second purpose of product semiotics is to change the traditional design concept for new features of microelectronics products. Traditional functionalism is based on geometry as the basis of technical beauty. The mainstream design concept is “shape conforming to function” and designing geometric shapes in three-dimensional geometric space. Product modeling means geometric design, and has formed a closed geometric form rule, which becomes an integral part of mechanical theory and technology. The behavior of electronic products is different from mechanical products. Each of them is like a "black box". People cannot see its internal behavior. If they design or operate electronic products according to the understanding of mechanical products, they will feel helpless. Because the "shape" of electronic products does not conform to its "functionality", the functional characteristics, meanings, and operations of these products cannot be described in terms of traditional geometric shape concepts. The large number of shape knowledge bases that designers have accumulated in the past do not work here. Therefore, functionalist design ideas cannot adapt to microelectronic products, electromechanical products, and computer products. When you use electronic products, you first need to understand its functions, you need to understand the operation process, what appropriate conditions and conditions they should have, and these must be understood visually. How to solve this problem by design? Start with semiotics and see how people use words to express behavior. When a person operates a microelectronics product, the brain uses the words to think about the use or operation process and communicates with the electronic products. When you use the radio, you will think: “Power on... Look for a central radio station... Sounds Too small to amplify the sound..." Therefore, designing these new microelectronic products should proceed from the communicative behavior of people and products, and use semiotics as the design basis. When designing these products, it is first necessary to analyze which action words are related to the use of actions, such as “power on”, “looking for a radio station”, etc. These words should constitute the user's entire operation process. Then analyze the meaning of these actions on the microelectronics products. “Power on” means turning on the switch. “Finding radio” means finding the frequency of the radio. The next step is to perform semantic conversions and set the functions of the electronic products according to these actions, and turn these words into the behavior of the microelectronics products. For example, the radio is turned on by pressing a button, and the frequency of the radio is adjusted by a knob or key.
(to be continued)