Semiosis of Dynamical Human-Environment Interactions

The second group deals with a semiosis of an adaptive environment. Semiotics is an important theoretical foundation for human-artifact systems research. This group adopts semiotic as a research approach among various approaches to study human-artifact systems and the contexts. As described before, the fundamental assumption of semiotics is that the meaning of a sign is not contained within it, but arises in its interpretation. Semiotics analyzes the kinds of contexts in which we place things and events, and the kinds of relationships we construct between them and these contexts. In this perspective, interaction design is concerned with building a coherent and cohesive message, in such a way that it strives to maximize the chances the message will be interpreted by users as meant by the designer.
As for social semiosis, Lemke identified and named three different sorts of contexts:

In this perspective, interaction design is concerned with building a coherent and cohesive message, in such a way that it strives to maximize the chances the message is interpreted by users as meant by the designer. In other words, interaction design may be viewed as conversation design. This kind of conversation is unique, because the designer is no longer present when it occurs (during interaction).
Based on the above, this group deals with a design of living environment based on the semiosis of human-environment System. The group of Monnai (Kyoto University) has so far developed the architectural, urban, and design semiotics, it tries to extend these studies in order to construct the semiotic engineering and the new design theory for dynamic adaptive system containing semiosis. This group assumes that meaning making by the human habitants concerning with the architects is based on the interpretation of a few elements of the architects, a mini genre. Large, complex genres can be analyzed as being composed of smaller, simpler ones. One can think of mini-genres that are used to fill the functional elements of major genres. What is present in the architect is always a part of some functional element in a genre, and it will have syntagmatic relations to other elements in these larger wholes. Living habitants are developing mini genres each of which has a few elements and also develop genres each of which contains some mini genres as a functional element. In this perspective, typical semiotic approaches to traditional townscapes, urban experiences, human behaviors, and design processes are presented. A townscape, a stage of human life, can be read as a text. It consists of various signs such as properties (color, material, etc.), formal elements (roof, wall, etc.), and systems (style, rule, law, etc.). We are able to find abundant meanings including firstness, secondness, and thirdness. Therefore, it is necessary to describe not only signs but also relations among signs, and to grasp the multi-modal semiosis of townscapes. The architectural signs of townscapes are linked together to form fascinating scenes in the same way that linguistic signs form literary texts. This research group focuses on the network of architectural signs, i.e. the architectural code. Based on this, this group describes the complex network of various signs in townscapes. It is possible to detect relation designs of townscapes and evaluate them using simulation systems based on the object system.
Another man-made adaptive environment is an information design of an interface system. Understanding the computer interface because of the computer's nature as a very special kind of communication medium. It is both an artifact in the sense of holding a set of messages left by the designer and an interactive tool which the user can communicate with. The interactive capacity of the interface makes it far closer to spoken language than other methods of communication such as literature or art, yet the restricted set of responses laid down by the designer puts the computer into a special category of its own. How to reconcile the perspectives of the system held by both designer and user is of importance and should be discussed in terms of semiosis. That is, Semiotic Engineering is a theory of HCI which views the interface as a designer-to-users message, representing the designer’s solution to what he believes is the users’ problems, needs, and preferences [2].
Based on this idea, the group of Horiguchi and Sawaragi (Kyoto University) deals with this problem in a domain of interface design for digital electric appliances. As for those products, peripheral functions are likely to be shoved to the ‘out-of-the-way’ corners of menu hierarchy because visibility and accessibility of flagship functions have precedence of theirs. Those functions are therefore likely to cause various breakdowns in human-machine communication when users are exploring a particular function of them from among a lot of menu items organized in hierarchy. In order to analyze the factors of and to find some solutions to such breakdowns, this group applies a couple of analysis methods, i.e., “communicative breakdown” analysis and “information scent” analysis, to user behaviors of menu selection.
The semiosis is a useful approach to activity design and/or redesign in a manufacturing field. In most Japanese manufacturing firms, operation and reformulation of a manufacturing system is being adaptively carried out trough an everlasting process of problem-solving activities by every member of the system under the name of TPM, TQM, etc.. Typical examples of such problem-solving activities are continuous improvements conducted by autonomous small groups formed with front line operators and engineers (i.e., Kaizen). Wherein, transformation processes of work procedures is mainly governed by the interpretation of on-site workers in the manufacturing site. Therefore, a new method to analyze transformation processes of work procedures in organizational activities is of importance and this is one of the typical semiotic problems. Within the daily activity procedures, various contradictions, i.e., misfits between components of the activity system, might arise out of and propagate throughout their activities, then induce some sorts of changes in the procedures for the better, and sometimes for the worse. Within organizations and/or communities, a human plays variable roles as an agent that is an actor, an observer, a cognizer, and an interpreter, which produces a complex organizational behavior. The group of Mizuyama (Kyoto University) aims at providing a framework based on the semiosis for understanding how an adaptive process of operation and reformulation of a manufacturing system conducted by its whole members, and pursues guidelines for arranging the environmental parameters like the organization structure, the budget system, the performance evaluation systems so that they can nurture the workers; indirectly affect and guide their activities so that the outcome should be settled into a satisfactory form by arranging those parameters.