The transmission of symbols and the usability of network products

Introduced

With the development of information technology and high technology, we are moving from a manufacturing-oriented economic era to a digital and network-oriented post-industrial era, with service and experience as the core of the tertiary industry will become the main driving force of the economy; network experience economy is mainly refers to the Internet for people to provide a variety of products and services companies, such as online shopping consumption, Information inquiries, corporate office management, online entertainment, etc., network product usability, aesthetics, simplicity of operation, task success rate, etc., directly affect people's experience in using network products, the theory of semiotics applied to the development of network products, from the design of symbolic transmission mode to study the availability of network products, Reduce the difference between the designer's symbolic code and the user's symbolic decoding, and transform the symbol of the network product into a more versatile, quicker, more efficient and more acceptable form [2], further enhancing the usability of the network products and increasing the user experience.

1 The significance and communication of design symbols

In the modern information dissemination, the symbol is an important information medium, the American industrial designer Philippe Stark (Philippe Starck) Prehistoric said: "Our profession (industrial design) does not belong to the artist, also certainly does not belong to the Esthetics house, Rather, it belongs to the semantics (semanticist) ... Objects must emit symbols, like children, animals and forest fires. [3]. Design semiotics is a theory developed on the basis of semiotics, and there are four main factions in the theoretical system of modern semiotics: First, the semiotic theory of Saussure, a Swiss linguist, he mainly expounds the theoretical system of semiotics from the perspective of linguistics; followed by American philosophers, The logical semiotic theory system of the logic house Pierce; There are Langer's art semiotics theory and Italian eco General semiotics theory; the symbol in design is the carrier that the designer transmits to the user information, from the perspective of cognitive psychology, the designer must stand on the user's angle, including the user's cultural background, the thinking mode, Behavior habits, group characteristics, and so on, to encode and convey the symbolic meaning and the design information can be accepted and understood by users without hindrance.

The meaning of network product symbol mainly includes external function and intrinsic emotion, the meaning that the symbol represents has the dominant use function, also has the invisible emotion culture, the latter is based on the former, they both complement each other, together constitute the network product value; The value of the network product symbol lies in the communication and exchange of the meaning, The symbolic communication mode mainly consists of the following parts: Designer symbol coding, symbols, user's symbol decoding, symbolic rules, communication channels, user feedback, etc. [1], here is worth emphasizing: the designer's symbolic code and the user's symbolic decoding must be based on the same symbol rules, Have a tendency to converge at least in certain knowledge and experience. For example, when a designer gives the website the button symbol to connect the meaning, must take full account of the user to the connection symbol recognition and the psychological characteristic, on this basis carries on the symbol coding and the meaning transmission, the user sees this button to be able to know how to operate. The visual design of different Web pages will also give people no functional understanding and emotional cultural feelings, when landing on the official IBM website, IBM's black, business, high-end, calm, leadership of the brand image will be reflected in your mind, but also when you landed in the cartoon Kingdom Disney website, you will feel cartoon, entertainment, comics, leisure, Children's brand image, these brand symbol image is a series of product symbols, corporate culture background, as well as users and products between the deep activities and experience.

2 symbol application of network products

Network products are based on the Internet and the development of information technology, such as the emergence of new products, such as Tencent's QQ chat tools, MSN, Alibaba online Alipay, etc., compared with traditional products, network products with interactive, technical, multimedia, efficient, comprehensive, real-time, advanced, Economic and web-based features, the product of the network age needs the brand-new design method, applies the semiotic theory to the network product development, the emphasis takes the user as the center the design, realizes the network product symbolic significance effective transmission and the feedback, lets the user have the better use experience, in the network product design, The symbols are mainly used in the following three kinds of applications:

First, the recognition and functional semantics of the network product symbol. The network product is a brand-new product, has own unique image and the use way, the network product symbol must be able to tell the user it is what thing, has what function, how should use; such as Tencent's QQ chat tool, because of its reasonable design, good usability, powerful function, stable and efficient system operation, has won the favor of users; and its installation process is very simple, the design of the operation process to meet human behavior habits, chubby penguin image became a network symbol, By the vast number of netizens accepted and understood, and ultimately to Tencent company brought great economic benefits.

Secondly, the affective semantics of the network symbol. Norman in his famous "Affective Design" in the preface of the book describes the story of three teapots, products in addition to the use of functions, we should pay attention to the emotional needs of people, digital and networking for people's lives brought about a new change, network products not only to meet the functional needs of people, but also should have emotional and life, and people have interactive , to tell the user stories and good memories, therefore, the symbol of network products to meet people's emotional needs, and ultimately realize the perfect combination of human, machine and environment.

Finally, the personalization of network product symbol and the semantic of culture. The network age is a time full of individuation, the symbol of network product should also have individuation and time; According to Maslow's theory of demand, people's pursuit of personalization and self-worth is the inevitable result of social development and progress, and the progress of science and technology has provided the possibility for people's pluralistic demand, However, the personalized symbol is not a personal symbol, personalized symbols should be based on national culture and global culture, the symbol of network products should be more inclusive and integrated, for the majority of users to accept and understand. such as the world famous Google search engine, the homepage of the interface design concise and full of personalized, only a eye-catching brand logo and search engine input box, the 2008 Google China announced the formal introduction of personalized home igoogle.com, it allows users according to personal preferences map, life, consulting, video, photo album , calendar and other functions focused on a page, igoogle is further enrich its user-provided personalized page selection; Google will also design the logo in different festivals, such as the Chinese New Year festival, its logo will be designed to congratulate the New Year's theme, This is Google's brand global strategy of integrating internationalization and regional localization, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Google search engine

3 Effective communication of symbols and availability of network products

How to improve the usability of the network product is becoming more and more important to the network programmer and Management, whose goal is to make the user get a good experience when using the network product. Effective communication of network product symbols is critical to the availability of network products, throughout the life cycle of the product, The designer must understand the user and its demand to carry on the symbol code of the product, especially the user's psychological cognition model research, pay attention to the user's feedback information and evaluate and improve the design, and improve the user's cognition, operation and subjective experience.

3.1 Usability assessment of network products

What is availability? The International Organization for Standardization (ISO 9241-11) defines usability as "the degree to which a product can be effective, efficient, and satisfied in a particular context by a particular user in a specific contexts". In his famous book, Don t make Me, Steve Krug A simple definition of usability: " Usability only means ensuring that the product is working smoothly: people with the ability and experience at an average (or even an average level) can use the product (whether it is a Web site, a fighter or a revolving door) without feeling helpless or frustrated. [6]

From the above definition, we can make a tentative definition of the usability of the network product: In a certain use environment, the target user can take advantage of the network product barrier-free and efficient to complete its task, and get a good experience. From the perspective of cognitive psychology and related theories, the usability evaluation of network products has the following aspects: A user's target task is successful, B user's learning operation time is short, C user's cognition and operation Error are few; D Network product's emotion and culture. The availability of network products can be described in terms of "user-friendly", "intuitive", "easy to use", "No Brains", "no need for long-term training", "can automatically fix errors" and other images. For example, a user intends to do online payment service in China Mobile's online business hall, in this case, the product is China Mobile online phone service, the user's goal is online payment, when we evaluate the availability of this product, the first is to see whether the user can focus on their own awareness and thinking of the task, Can operate according to their own mental cognitive model, do not need to be distracted in the search for a human-machine interface menu or understanding of the program structure, Man-machine interface structure and icon meaning, and so on; Secondly, the whole operation process how long the user spent to complete the payment business, whether encountered the problem that can not be solved; Again novice user's susceptibility, in abnormal , the user can complete the payment; is the image of the product consistent with China's mobile brand strategy culture, see Figure 2.

Figure 2 China Mobile online Business Hall

3.2 Symbol effective communication to improve the usability of network products

In the ideal symbolic communication mode, the effective transmission of the symbol requires the designer's symbolic code to be consistent with the user's symbolic decoding, that is, the symbolic meaning conveyed by the designer is the same as that of the user. But in reality many network products, designers design model, user's psychological model, The realization model of the system is often different, the user can't understand the symbolic information conveyed by the designer, which leads to the user's inability to use the product normally, therefore, the effective communication of the symbol is very important to improve the usability of the network product.

3.2. 1 symbol encoding and decoding of network products

Symbolic coding is the designer's translation of specific information into a user-understandable, acceptable design symbols, it is the designer to convey the external function of information and internal ideological significance to the user a means, network product designers to consider how the product information quickly and correctly communicated to the target user, When the user sees the product, it can recognize the function of the product, through a short period of learning can be skilled operation, through the visible or intangible sign expression, network products to the user to bring emotional pleasure and cultural identity, therefore, the network product symbols must be intuitive, simple, easy to identify, based on the user's psychological model.

The decoding of the symbol is the process of the symbolic encoding, which is the user's restoration of the information of the design symbol received according to the specific decoding rules and the usage situation. In the process of decoding the network products, the user interprets the symbols as comprehensible information by associating their own knowledge and experience, and the decoding stage of the symbol is much more complicated than the symbol coding stage. As people often say, "1000 readers have 1000 hamlet." Because the design symbol itself is ambiguous and ambiguous, this makes the meaning of the symbol more complicated [2], each user has different use environment, cultural background, knowledge and experience, in order to realize the effective transmission of symbolic meaning, as the sender of information, designers should be combined with the target user's thinking mode, behavior habits, The cultural background, the group characteristic and so on carries on the symbol code, as far as possible excludes the subjective factor and the emotion. For example, by a lot of office white-collar and college students like QQ Farm, it is a simulation of the real farm game, the player can grow vegetables in the virtual network, plant crops, keep pets, go to friends at home to steal vegetables, QQ farm in addition to a network game to pass the time, but also to provide users with experience to reclaim land, sowing, watering, pest, Hit pesticides, do a steal food thief, and friends and relatives exchange interaction, when the user in a friend vegetable garden in the joy of stealing vegetables, they are not only playing a game, more is in the experience of a way of life entertainment, so that they bring emotional pleasure and satisfaction, see Figure 3.

Figure 3 QQ Farm

3.2. 2 The realization condition of network product symbol effective communication

From the above, the availability of network products refers to "in a certain use environment, the target users can use the network product barrier-free and efficient completion of their tasks, and get a good use of experience." ", therefore, we want to discuss how to achieve the effective transmission of network products, so as to enhance the availability of network products, Romain Yas Jacobson Accent Code (code) and social context factors (contextual) is the effective transmission of symbolic meaning of the two necessary That the meaning of the symbol is effectively communicated depends on a particular code and a particular use scenario. [3]

In the semiotics theory, based on people's cultural background and ideology, the specific symbolic system is called code, such as the group culture characteristic of our young people is a character code; The code of the network product is the symbol system that the designer and the user can understand, the designer in the code of the design symbol, Based on the whole network symbol system, through the creation of symbols, the rational and orderly decomposition and integration of the user-acceptable symbolic information. For example, in the image processing software Adobe Photoshop, the interface design followed the software interface design code and the user's psychological model, the design will be the overall color combination of reasonable collocation, the main menu on the top, commonly used toolbars on the left, Some of the auxiliary tools and scroll bars on the right side of the image processing, the status bar on the bottom, some less commonly used tools hidden in the top menu bar, the entire interface designed to conform to the visual process and user use psychology, see Figure 4.

The intervention of network product code is only the basis of symbolic communication, and the effective communication of network product symbol relies on the use of symbol, that is, to consider the social context, which mainly involves the user's psychological, social and cultural factors, As Norman pioneered the user-centric design, users in the use of products not only passively accept the intention of the designer, but based on their knowledge and cultural background of the behavior, the user through association and thinking to build the cognitive psychological model of the product, therefore, throughout the design product cycle, Our designers need to understand the user's needs and psychological characteristics, consider the user's use scenarios, real-time assessment of user feedback information, and ultimately let the target users in the use of network products to get a good experience. For example, RIM, one of the world's leading companies in the global business smartphone market, whose BlackBerry and related services are favored by consumers around the world, which has already accounted for about 55% per cent of the smartphone market in the United States, has a huge success in Europe and the US, Mainly from its core functions: to provide enterprises with mobile Office integration solutions, which push mail is the most user-focused, which with the European and American users of the high degree of reliance on e-mail. But the smartphone giant's path to the Chinese market does not seem to be as smooth as it has done around the world, for the following reasons: "User reliance on Email" is not a transplant to the Chinese market, when users communicate in China, More accustomed to the use of traditional voice or SMS business; Although the Mail has become one of the communication platforms, but the importance of this platform is far from telephone and text messages, because of the impact of the Internet, Chinese users are more accustomed to free use, the cost and relatively high cost of BlackBerry services, and not to mention individual users, Even the enterprise users will be more difficult to accept because of the price-performance concern, therefore, the contextual factors are very important for the effective communication of the product symbol.

Figure 4 Adobe Photoshop software

4 Conclusion

In the information age, Internet products play a more and more important role in people's life, the usability of the network product involves the user's cognition, operation and psychological feeling when using the product, which is different from the design of the mechanical product, the design of the network product needs a better design method, and the communication theory of semiotics is used to put forward the "user-centered" The symbolic transmission pattern, in the whole process of design, designers to understand the user's goals, needs, behavior and use scenarios, to ensure that all aspects of network products and the user's psychological model to match, reduce users in the use of products frustrated, and ultimately let the target users in the use of network products to get a good experience.

References

[1] Zhanglinghao. The semantics of the product [M]. Beijing: China Construction Industry Press, 2009.

[2] Hu Fei, Yangrui. Design symbols and product semantics [M]. Beijing: China Construction Industry Press, 2007.

[3] Chen, Gao Yun, Sho King. Communication of semantics [M]. Beijing: China Construction Industry Press, 2005.

[4] Pierre Girot. Introduction to Semiotics [M]. Waiyu, Chengdu: Sichuan publishing House, 1988.

[5] B. Joseph Par, James H. Giffords. Experience economics [M]. Xia, Rouves, etc., translation. Beijing: Machinery Industry Press, 2008.

[6] Tom Tullis, Bill Albert. User experience metrics [M]. Zhou Ronggang. Beijing: Machinery Industry Press, 2009.

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