Beskrivelse
Since the late 00's, semiotic technology studies have investigated how semiotic resources and regimes are incorporated into software programs and other (digital) technologies for making meaning (e.g., Djonov & van Leeuwen 2013; Zhao & Zappavigna 2018). However, even though numerous studies have concluded that semiotic software must be investigated deeper from the perspective of software designers, few studies have so far actually done so (cef. Djonov & van Leeuwen 2022; Poulsen & Kvåle 2018). Designers’ perspectives are necessary to learn more about how technologies might become semiotic to different users and to prevent "screen essentialism", i.e., semiotic studies of software that only consider end-user interfaces without accounting for the computational levels of information processing "below" the screen surface.This presentation depicts the technical discipline of software engineering as a field of semiotic practices where the design choices made by engineers potentially have significant impact on end-users’ social and semiotic practices. Software designers’ conceptualizations of social communication and interaction, as well as how these inform the production and design of modal affordances and constraints made available in various user interfaces, are of particular interest in this line of research. Additionally, the study of semiotic software engineering aims to supplement current end-user semiotic software studies.
This paper presents preliminary findings from a series of case studies of software engineers and investigates software development and design from a semiotic technology perspective. The findings are produced by extensive field observations, interviews, video recordings, and close text analysis of software documentation and software prototypes. Three interconnected aspects are mapped: i) semiotic and social practices of software engineering, ii) technologies for making software programs, and iii) software products that are produced using these practices and tools and serve as the starting point for end-users' semiotic work.
| Periode | 28. sep. 2023 |
|---|---|
| Begivenhedstitel | 11th International Conference on Multimodality: Designing Futures |
| Begivenhedstype | Konference |
| Placering | London, StorbritannienVis på kort |
| Grad af anerkendelse | International |