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The study aims to propose the use of the semiotics inspection method (SIM) which is an interpretative and qualitative method from semiotics engineering (SE) for the evaluation of the communicability of systems and to evaluate digital libraries and information retrieval systems (IRS). The paper presents the results of the application of this method in the evaluation of the quality of the communicability of the interface and search system of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) Portal of e-Journals, a major scientific digital library in Brazil. There are proposed solutions to improve this system included.

The study used the SIM to evaluate the system. Two evaluators inspected the system. They performed the comparison and the analysis of three types of metamessages (metalinguistic, static and dynamic). The metamessages generated by the evaluators were contrasted to find inconsistencies and ambiguities in the CAPES Portal of e-Journals. Finally, the last step of the method was the final assessment about the inspection.

The evaluators identified 52 problems of communicability. These problems were ranked according to severity ratings established by Nielsen (1994). They were grouped in ten types of problems present in the interface and in the search system of the CAPES Portal of e-Journals.

This research contributes theoretically to the field of information retrieval and to the area of human–computer interaction and, in particular, to the theory of SE by adapting SE methods that allow the evaluation of communicability to the context of the scientific IRS. Results obtained through scientific methods should contribute to development of the interface and search tools of IRS to better support query formulation and retrieval of relevant information and more efficiently satisfy the information needs of individuals.

The underlying objective of this literature review was to investigate what kinds of semiotics researches have been employed in user interfaces design and usability evaluation, and how were they employed.

This research follows a systematic literature review process that consists of three key stages: planning the review, conducting the review, and reporting the review. Starting with an initial set of about 1,000 research articles, 65 were selected for this review, using an inclusion and exclusion criteria. Qualitative and quantitative data were extracted from the selected literatures following a data extraction strategy in six themes of data extraction. The extracted data were synthesized to formulate the stated research questions to obtain the review goals.

This systematic review identified research strengths, gaps, and challenges. Apart from this, further research possibilities were also explored in this review. For research, the review showed clear needs for more researches to increase both the number and the quality of studies that can be focused on the research gaps identified by this systematic review related to: outcome validation; cultural issues consideration; user interfaces of mobile applications and websites; semiotics perception in usability evaluation; and further improve the value and applicability of research ideas. For practice, the review showed the significance of semeiotics in user interface design and usability evaluation to develop users' intuitive interfaces for boosting the system's usability.

Based on a systematic literature review, the paper not only depicts the current status of semiotics research in user interface design and evaluation, but also provides a number of implications for research and practice. Thus, the review contributes to the scientific community of user interface design and evaluation, as well as suggesting the actual advances in the state of the practice in semiotics research on user interface.

The purpose of this empirical study was to address two important concerns of Web usability: how user-intuitive interface signs affect Web usability and how applying semiotics (i.e. the doctrine of signs) in user interface (UI) design and evaluation helps to improve usability.

An empirical research approach is followed here to conduct three user tests. These tests were conducted on a Web application with 17 test participants. Data were gathered through laboratory-based think-aloud usability test, questionnaires and interviews. Following an empirical research approach, statistics and user behavior analysis were used to analyze the data.

This study explores two important concerns of UI design and evaluation. First, users’ interpretation accuracy of interface signs impact on Web usability. The study found that users’ interpretation of signs might be accurate, moderate, conflicting, erroneous or incapable; user-intuitive interface signs led participants to interpret signs’ meaning accurately; and users’ inaccurate interpretation of one or a few task-related interface sign(s) led users to usability problems, resulting in participants performing tasks with lower task-completion performance. Second, considering semiotics perception in UI design and evaluation is important to improve Web usability. This study showed that interface signs, when re-designed considering the semiotics guidelines, have increased the end-users’ interpretation accuracy and the interface signs’ intuitiveness. This study also provides a small set of semiotics guidelines for sign design and evaluation.

This study empirically demonstrated that signs’ intuitiveness impact on Web usability and that considering the semiotics perception in sign design and evaluation is important to improve Web usability. These outcomes are valuable in a number of ways to HCI researchers and practitioners: the results provide awareness of the importance of user-intuitive interface signs in UI design; practitioners can easily adopt the concept of interpretation accuracy classification to conduct a sign test to obtain an “overall impression of interface signs’ intuitiveness”; practitioners can easily adopt the methodological approach followed in this study to conduct usability test without additional resources; and the results raised important fundamental questions for future research such as “what does a practitioner need to be aware of when designing or evaluating interface signs?”

Semiotics studies systems of signs. It regards all sign systems as the product of a single human faculty for creating order. The distinction it provides, of signifier, sign and signified, can give a more sophisticated and incisive way of differentiating aspects of the sign than can be derived from any other known source. Information science would seem to have some unnoticed affinities with semiotics in its concerns with the retrieval and transmission of material products of the semiotic faculty and with meaning to concept relations. The alignment of information science with the physical sciences and technology has been criticised and its disciplinary identity questioned. Information science would seem to derive what identity it has from a widely shared concern with computer based retrieval of documentary information. However, a unifying principle for the document and the computer has not been enunciated. For semiotics, written language, and computer programs can be comprehended within the analytical category of the signifier. Automata theory regards the computer as a universal information machine and replaces ideas of energy and motion by logical operations. At the level of discourse of logical operations, there is no distinction between a written expression, or program, and the particular information machine specified by that written expression. Elements in linguistics, not registered in the literature of information science, have departed from the received position that written language is simply a representation of speech and have preferred to regard it as an autonomous system of signs. A specific unifying principle for the document and the computer is then the presence of writing. Revealing such a unifying principle indicates that semiotics can clarify significant issues within the established domains of information science.

In this editorial for a double volume on “Multimodality, Meaning, and Institutions” in Research in the Sociology of Organizations, we aim to achieve three objectives: first, we provide a set of guiding ideas about what a multimodal prism entails for the study of meaning and institutions; second, we give an overview of the topics, concepts, and methods covered in this volume and briefly introduce the central contributions and insights of each article; third, we outline a number of open questions and fruitful avenues for a future research agenda at the intersection of organization studies, institutional theory, and multimodality research.

There has been considerable discussion in recent years over the application of interpretive methodologies such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, and semiotics within the field of marketing research, particularly consumer behaviour. However, while these approaches have inspired a wealth of publications, scant attention has been paid to the potential of grounded theory. This is attributed largely to misconceptions regarding both the principles of the method and the two distinct approaches associated with the original authors, Glaser and Strauss (1967). The paper outlines the development of the method and explicates the philosophy underpinning its procedures. Finally, it suggests that grounded theory if applied in its true sense has scope and potential for the study of consumer behaviour and consumption experiences given its emphasis on context, theoretical emergence, and the social construction of realities.

This paper seeks to analyse Foster's Lager advertising since the early 1980s. In particular, it aims to focus on the Foster's Lager “I Believe” integrated marketing communications (IMC) campaign launched in 2000 and the use of “commercial nationalism”.

A close textual analysis consisting of semiotics, shot combination analysis, and content analysis is incorporated into the discussion of the Foster's Lager advertisements examined. These methodologies are helpful for deconstructing mediated representations of this iconic beer brand.

Nationalism and humour have both played an important part in Foster's Lager advertising campaigns. However, campaigns in more recent times have become more sophisticated and ironic. In examining a number of significant advertising campaigns for Australia's flagship beer, the transition from national to global beer brand can be documented. Since 1888 the brand name Foster's has evolved from being just one of a number of beer brands in Australia to the international flagship product of the global beverage giant, and fourth largest brewing company in the world, Foster's Group Limited.

In particular, the Foster's Lager “I Believe” campaign was an excellent example of the witty use of nationalism and patriotism to communicate a message.

Examining how the Foster's Lager brand evolved into a global brand provides lessons for marketers and educators, particularly in the effective use of commercial nationalism.

The paper brings a detailed analysis of the successful use of commercial nationalism.

This paper aims to investigate visual exaggerations of fragrance advertisements by comparing subjects' expectations resulting from print ads to their subsequent product evaluations. It then considers whether the actual scents fall short, meet or exceed these expectations.

By means of a semiotic analysis the authors capture the corresponding literary attributes of the ads to develop adjective pairs describing the meaning of the ads. Interviews are conducted to assess the meaning that consumers draw from the fragrance ads and the authors supplement these findings by performing a blind olfactory product evaluation of the fragrances. Paired sample t‐tests are used to compare subjects' ad expectations to their subsequent product evaluation of the actual scent.

These results show that the visual cues and imagery in the fragrance ads appear, under certain conditions, to result in product expectations that exceed actual product evaluations, suggesting the existence of visual puffery. The authors also found that the more abstract descriptors of the ad resulted in significantly higher expectations, while the more concrete descriptors resulted in significantly lower expectations than the actual product evaluation.

A small sample size of homogenous consumers limits the generalizability of the results. No measures of attitude effectiveness were taken.

Visual puffery may be effective and help marketers, even in countries where verbal puffery is illegal, to use another means to reach consumers.

This paper investigates an under‐researched area in advertising. A multi‐method approach and primary data are used to assess subjects' ad expectations of a fragrance and the actual product evaluation and demonstrate the existence of visual puffery.

Thinkers are still debating about the concept of information while engineers prepare astonishing digital appliances. The purpose of this paper is to address the following questions: what concepts do experts adopt in the working environment? What information do they measure? What can be done to help them?

This paper offers a concise report of the researches driven on the problem of the information definition. The report consists of three principal sections. The first section is twofold. On one hand, there are comments on the various information theories; on the other hand, the semiotics concepts (that engineers and professionals use in intuitive manner) are illustrated.

In consequence of the popularity of the semiotic notions – in the second section – the authors define the concept of signifier using the mathematical language, and discuss some features of this mathematical definition.

The third section closes the paper with the illustration of some advantages that the mathematical definition of the signifier offers on the practical plane and from the philosophical perspective.

The ensemble of those advantages provides a bridge between the humanist culture and digital engineering.

The theoretical studies on the concept of information seem to be at a standstill. This paper shows how the measurement of the items of information is handy; and various equations can be unified into a comprehensive frame that facilitates the collaboration of experts coming from different areas.