The Semantic Turn - a New Foundation for Design Review

TZ70AA03-2001 Cross-platform Publishing and Content Management

Sami Reinilä

Summary

The Semantic Turn is an academic in depth look into design profession and science of design. It combines design with psychology, artifacts, and ecologies, and explains design process with several diagrams and real world examples. Definitely worth reading.

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While it was great to read about industrial design and the early days of computers I wish more modern day examples about interfaces, UI design and gadgets of our times. Most examples are old, Xerox photocopiers and printers, Apple UI’s from the 90’s and so on. Current mobile device revolution and it’s emerging multi-device multi-screen design needs more attention in the forms of design, stakeholders and ecologies. Of course the same design principles in the book apply, but it would also give an easier entry point and enchance the feeling that Kippendorf’s research and methods are up with the time (which they are, but why not underline it). An update chapter about these would make a good addition into the book.

Main Issues

Meaning

Wiki MarkupAttributing meaning to something follows from sensing it, and is a prelude to action." One always acts according to the meaning of whatever one faces " \ [Krippendorff (2006), pp. 58\]. Meanings are always someone's construction and depend on context and culture.

Artifacts

Artifacts are not just subjects and tangible things. The Semantic Turn extends the concerns of designers to challenges of design with intangible artifacts: services, identities, interfaces, multi-user systems, projects and discourses. It also covers the meaning of artifacts in use, in language, in the life cycle of the artifact, and in an ecology of artifacts.

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