Developing heuristics for the semiotics inspection of websites

ABSTRACT

The usability of web communication depends on design decisions made along a number of dimensions. These include content, information architecture, navigation, graphics and the design of the interface signs (e.g. labels, command affordances and icons), that we generally call semiotics. Although there is awareness of the importance of the quality of these specific elements to ensure usability, existing usability evaluation methods fail to provide designers with inspection principles to specifically assess the semiotics aspects for web interfaces. This experience report illustrates and discusses the development of an initial set of heuristics and procedural tools aimed at guiding the semiotics inspection of large, information-intensive websites, as a separate concern from the other design dimensions, extensively covered in the usability literature. The semiotics heuristics defined represent a complementary toolkit to the existing usability methods.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.1 Multimedia Information Systems
          Subjects: Evaluation/methodology

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors, Theory

Keywords:
evaluation method, heuristics, ontologies, semiotics, signs, usability evaluation, usability inspection, websites