Contains a critique of other iconic taxonomies including Gaver and Blattner et al. (Gaver 1986; Blattner, Sumikawa, & Greenberg 1989). The suggestion is that they fail in distinguishing between sign and referent relations. The authors propose a taxonomy including:
- Direct reference: Signal ----> Sign Referent/Denotative Referent (identical referents).
- Indirect reference: Signal ---->Sign Referent ----> Denotative Referent.
The referent relation (between Sign and Denotative referents) can be:
- Part-part: S and D share a subset of features.
- Part-whole: all the features of S are a subset of D.
- Whole-part: all the features of D are a subset of S.
- Identical: S and D have the same set features.
- Disjoint: S and D have no features in common.
based on commonalities (or not) between feature sets of S and D. The most common signs are part-part and part-whole.
Blattner, M. M., Sumikawa, D. A., & Greenberg, R. M. (1989). Earcons and icons: Their structure and common design principles. Human-computer Interaction, 4, 11–44. Gaver, W. W. (1986). Auditory icons: Using sound in computer interfaces. Human-computer Interaction, 2, 167–177. |