Implications of adopting semiological approach on iconic representation in website design

Abstract

Computers are by far the most ubiquitous media used by contemporary societies; it took over large share of contemporary communication. Accordingly, digital advertising is getting more important and central to the advertising industry, specifically website design. As advertising design is evolving towards a more digital approach, moreover it become more and more dependable on computers for production and consumption of the ads, studying semiotics will help the rise in digital advertising. Common understanding of semiotics concepts and theories with relation to communication would result in advances in designing for the web. As humans depend on signs in their lives from its simplest form to the ultimate advanced form, dependency on them is inevitable. People are surrounded by images, texts, sounds of all kinds; it is only but natural for signs dependency to shape the landscape of contemporary advertising. This research discusses the role of semiotic theories played in designing websites. Moreover it investigates the relationship between images and verbal texts in designing websites from a semiological perspective. Iconic representation of websites will be studied to illustrate how signs are used in designing digital advertising. Multimodality versus traditional text-based communication is also discussed to demonstrate why semiotics is an important tool in designing digital advertising.This research aims to demonstrate why and how better understanding of semiotics can be used by designers to enhance the usability and accessibility of websites as manifestation of contemporary digital advertising. In addition, it aims to demonstrate the role of images and text as signs in the cognitive process of meaning building. To achieve the research aims, This research uses a qualitative method for its descriptive, explanatory and exploratory roles.. Semiological analysis of selected websites will be carried out.

Keywords

• website design; semiotics; iconic representation; usability