Definitions
icon
sign/symbol
metaphor

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Intellect Paperback
Visual Language for the WWW
Honeywill, P., 1999
230x174mm, 192 pages
ISBN 1-871516-76-5

independent book review by Roy Johnson 2003

The purpose of this website design book is to speculate on the developmental route of computer symbols and how computer users comprehend interfaces. What has become apparent is the natural development of visual language for interfaces which now form the World Wide Web. No organisation or individual has decided what it should be, it has merely evolved. Internet icons found on websites in North America or Europe are no different from those that appear on interfaces in Central America or Asia. This is not a haphazard arrangement - many factors have enabled this to happen since modernism at the beginning of the 20th century, or indeed 6,000 years earlier with pre-cuneiform Sumerian. These influences outside of interfaces, and the transactional nature of using computers has created an Internet icon language through context, contact and a shared code. The context describes the reason for the interaction which is normally transactional between humans and computer interfaces; contact is how the interaction is performed (point/click) and code is the agreed method of communication during interaction (text, compound icon and its lexicon).This book does not measure or factor probabilities of language development - it analyses different visual writings systems to compare their use and possible implication for website navigation design. This is undertaken in two main ways. First, by undertaking a small-scale investigation of Maya hieroglyphics to learn from the past and see how this informs computer symbols; and secondly the first half of this century is looked at and its implication for website design.

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It needs to be stated first that visual language for the GUI (Graphical User Interface) needs clarification as to how its parts are described. Graphic designers talk of basic elements, and that elements can come together to form other elements that then have a relationship with other elements until the design is complete.

The approach to computer syntax is to introduce Maya hieroglyphic writing as a small-scale investigation to be compared with other visual writing systems and natural written language. This does not attempt to imply that Maya writing has had any influence upon interfaces, indeed when the Apple Lisa was introduced in 1983 Maya hieroglyphs were still mainly undeciphered with scholars debating their content in terms of language or simply calendar's. The reason to choose Maya hieroglyphs is because it is now known that it never lost its visual origins to write ideographically, phonetically or more usually as a mixture of both. In order to compare systems, hieroglyphs and English grammar are explored for their use of syntax and how this can be applied to computer symbols. The comparison identifies some similarities and differences between verb, object and subject use, but more importantly their use of consonants. Like us, certain other commonalities can be identified from the Maya observation of the natural world, and how they interpreted this through the use of their metaphors. Frogs, especially when squashed, have no denotative or connotative association with birth in cultures other than the Maya. In their context and shared code this has the power to convey the appropriate concept, and is no different from another culture's equivalent. It is an opportunity to appreciate why this visual writing system could be used in a precise way, so that these lessons might be applied today.

Computer icon elements that become associated with meaning (hands) are normally through regular exposure as part of other icons, because of this they appear to develop as an overall part of visual syntax.

Their is an assumption that nouns (objects) and verbs (actions) as visual metaphors are readily understood. First, a questionnaire is undertaken using computer symbols out of their intended context. These icons are elements from a specific program, icon elements randomly selected from many programs, and ISO symbols used outside of computer interfaces. All except the first and final category would have text associated with them. It is argued that Internet icons should be able to communicate independently of written language and that understanding of computer symbols need only be approximate and not exact. It must also be remembered that the purpose of 'icon driven' interfaces is so that general and functional information can be instantly accessed, therefore the relationship between symbols and natural written language are explored. However, there are systems that are expected to function independently of natural written language. Indeed, for some, language would impede function slowing down the operator when speed of operation is essential, such as operating a difibulator when patient information needs to be rapidly processed through symbols.

There are three kinds of sign - those which look like what they represent, abstract forms which represent the essence of an object and indexical where the referent sign implies its meaning through an indirect relationship with what it represents.

It has long been acknowledged that new mediums allow for a change in design possibilities, both good and bad, and website navigation design is no different. It is also important not to forget past or present communication mediums that have built up principles of how best to present and organise how legibility and readability are achieved. What can be learned from this and applied to a new medium is dealt with by returning to fundamentals established by other modes of graphic communication. This book recognises this, and also the fluid nature of interface design being capable of describing the original in different ways and possibly not what its designer had initially intended. Problems can become an opportunity to be solved in ways that are unique to websites. To establish possibilities computer symbols are measured against other applications of design, for example how magazines are viewed overall to enable the reader to be directed around pages. Using established principles can help evaluate what carries over, what can be adapted to form new principles, and just as importantly what does not apply.

If something works well, it can go unnoticed and remain the same, and this is probably true of human-computer interaction, ever since Alan Kays notion of how SmallTalk might possibly work. Microsoft helped to establish the Apple approach of how users communicate their intention to the central processor, and it has fundamentally been that way ever since. A baseline for the natural selection for visual syntax has formed which continues to form part of the overall interaction. If this is so, then having learned the approach of how to use something once, it then becomes more of the same for using interfaces with other metaphors - simply put, skills transfer. Therefore, how users learn is central. Observing people using computers might suggest that those who don't ask for assistance or an explanation are probably achieving their task. This is an assumption - an empirical approach would be to get behind the interface and track, monitor and generate a computer report on how users react to different interface metaphors which range from abstract to representative and among their own family symbol groups, to discover without bias what precisely happens. The final chapters bring everything together with examples from websites and their design to a catalogue of Internet icons from around the world. This website is the expansion and continual update of this book.