PhD thesis: Exploring a Semiotics of New Media

In 2001, I began a PhD at Napier University under Prof. David Benyon’s supervision, which applied my artistic background and interest in semiotics to the problems of analysing meanings in user interface design. My thesis reviewed a wide range of semiotic theories from various media domains, with the aim of identifying appropriate elements that are applicable to the analysis of interacting with interactive media systems. It was also concerned with developing a semiotic model of users actively interpreting and manipulating signs during interaction. This provided an alternative to traditional views of interaction highlighting the complex nature of meaning-making activities that cannot always be modelled by traditional HCI methods. The thesis also explored and developed methods of semiotic enquiry that were shown to be useful in analysing meaning-making in different situations of use, ranging from mobile phones, traditional computer interfaces and virtual environments. The culmination of this work has been turned into a book titled Interactive Media: The Semiotics of Embodied Interaction, published by Springer in 2008

BENOGO (Being there, but Not Going) EU, IST-2001-39184

During the same period that I was studying for my PhD, I worked for two years (2003-2005) as a research assistant on the EU funded BENOGO project. The project was concerned with the development of software to improve interactions with new image based rendered (IBR) virtual environments. The goal of our team was to research how presence in virtual environments might be improved by establishing a ‘sense of place’ within them. Investigating what constitutes a sense of place and how to measure it, we developed a “place probe” questionnaire, which was used to compare user experiences in a number of real world and virtual environment studies. The findings of these studies were then communicated to the development team as a series of interaction patterns to help inform the design of future IBR environments. The results of this work, point towards a need for further understanding in how to successfully integrate the embodied actions of users necessary in establishing a sense of place in any virtual environment. This work suggests that the limited nature of most VR technology that excludes bodily concerns limits the agency of the user and thus inhibits a sense of place as well as alienating the user.

Leonardo: Culture Creativity and Interaction Design GR/T21042/01

Leonardo-Net was a radically interdisciplinary research network set up to define a programme of research in the UK on culture, creativity and interaction design. Drawing researchers from diverse backgrounds such as art, design, computer science and cultural/media studies, the aim was to explore human-computer interaction (HCI) in relation to perspectives from these diverse fields. Based at the University of York, the formal life of the network is now over but the strong connections made still remain and are evident on the final output of the project. The project produced a landscape document for  the EPSRC on the future direction of interaction design research and a special issue of the online Human Technology journal on Culture, Creativity and Technology. From its inception, I was a key member of the Leonardo-Net, network contributing at all of the major workshops and events as well as playing a vital role as guest editor on the special issue.