Exploring the impact of interface signs’ interpretation accuracy, design, and evaluation on web usability. A semiotics perspective
| Date | 04 November 2014 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JSIT-03-2014-0019 |
| Published date | 04 November 2014 |
| Pages | 250-276 |
| Author | Muhammad Nazrul Islam,Franck Tétard |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information systems |
Exploring the impact of interface
signs’ interpretation accuracy,
design, and evaluation on
web usability
A semiotics perspective
Muhammad Nazrul Islam
Department of Information Technologies, Åbo Akademi University,
Turku, Finland, and
Franck Tétard
Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
Abstract
Purpose – 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.
Design/methodology/approach – 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.
Findings – 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, conicting, 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.
Originality/value – 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 classication to conduct a
The author would like to thank all the participants of this study. Åbo Akademi Foundation (ÅAF),
Finnish Economic Education Foundation, HPY:n Tutkimussäätiö (Elisa Oyj), Nokia Foundation,
TeliaSonera Research and development Foundation in Finland provided the grant that has made
this research possible. For this, ÅAF, LSR, Elisa and TeliaSonera are gratefully acknowledged. To
Franck Tétard, thank you for your feedback and suggestions for strengthening this paper. The
author also thanks several anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1328-7265.htm
JSIT
16,4
250
Journal of Systems and Information
Technology
Vol. 16 No. 4, 2014
pp. 250-276
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1328-7265
DOI 10.1108/JSIT-03-2014-0019
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?”
Keywords Web usability, Think-aloud usability test, Human-computer interaction, Semiotics,
Interface signs, Web user interface, User experience
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Over the past decades, with the advent of globalization and the rise of information
technology, the competition has increased for not only with the millions of other Web
applications who produce or provide the same products or services but also for the users’
attention, time, happiness, easiness, effectiveness and satisfaction (Choraria, 2012;
Flavian et al., 2009). The most signicant measurement unit of these qualities is
usability. Usability is dened as “the effectiveness, efciency, and satisfaction with
which specied users achieve specied goals in particular environment” (ISO 9241-11,
1998). Lack of usability contributes to user dissatisfaction, frustration, etc., eventually
resulting in application abandonment. Therefore, usability is considered a key quality
for a Web application.
The interaction between user and Web application is mediated by a Web user
interface (UI). A Web UI encompasses a number of navigational links, command
buttons, thumbnails, small images, short texts, images, icons, etc. These smallest
elements of UIs are dened in this paper as interface signs (Figure 1). Interface signs are
treated as one of the most crucial elements of UIs because:
• the content and functions of Web applications are essentially directed by interface
signs; and
• end-users obtain the desired information or perform tasks in Web applications by
interacting with interface signs.
Furthermore, interface design and its usability evaluation are conducted along a
number of dimensions. Bolchini et al. (2009) include content, information architecture,
navigation, layout and interface signs in these dimensions (Figure 1). If two applications
are identical with respect to content, information, navigation and graphical layout but
different in terms of interface signs, then we can assume that the more intuitive interface
signs contribute positively to the usability. Therefore, designers should design the
interface signs intuitive for end-users so that end-users can easily and accurately
understand the referential meaning of the interface signs to perform their desired tasks.
Design principles used by designers focus on sense production and interpretation, and
thereby implicate semiotics – the science of signs (Peirce, 1931, p. 58).
Usability evaluation methods (UEM) are considered as important quality assessment
techniques in Web site evaluation (Al-Wabil and Al-Khalifa, 2009). Usability evaluation
is the process during which designers and developers test, verify and validate the results
of the design process. A number of UEM have been proposed in the past few decades
(Insfran and Fernandez, 2008). Evaluation methods are classied into the following four
groups by Whiteeld et al. (1991):
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Interface signs’
interpretation
accuracy
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