> If programming and designing is communication There's a research field called Semiotics of Human-Computer Interaction studying user interfaces from that ang

> If programming and designing is communication There's a research field called Semiotics of Human-Computer Interaction studying user interfaces from that angle. Developers usually have a technical background from maths or engineering, and often are not aware of the importance of linguistics in our field. Both programming languages and GUIs are languages (artificial, sure, but linguistics also study those) which are used to write expressions that can be read by humans. Semiotics, the study of signs and their meaning, provide methods to analyze how users make sense of the software artifacts (products and tools) delivered to them. One researcher called the user interface a designer's deputy, i.e. a messenger that conveys in its entirety a message that the programmers wants to communicate to the users. This deputy must stand on its own, since it's the only information available to the user. Users then perform sense-making on the symbols in the interface, to infer the meanings of all elements [1]. Notice that the user can't see what each interface element actually does, since they don't have access to the code; they can only guess what it does from the available symbols. If the symbols lead the user to infer an incorrect meaning, communication breaks. [1] https://blog.prototypr.io/how-semiotics-can-help-us-in-ux-on-deconstructing-experience-eaf3e55fb0e1 https://blog.prototypr.io/how-semiotics-can-help-us-in-ux-on...