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Semantics! I’m not talking about the semantic web, but semantics in general. I’m sure you know, but the idea of semantics is the concern of meaning. For example, when I use language to communicate, I really want it to convey my meaning because that’s the reason I’m communicating. Hence, the importance of semantics and meaning.

On rare occasion I’ll be accused of “arguing semantics” and I’ve never quite got why that was a bad thing. It turns out in all these cases I was trying to understand what the other person meant because they were talking about something that was either ambiguous or just didn’t make sense to me the way they talked about it. There was a language disconnect and the only way to correct it was to teach them my language.

The thing that I might be doing wrong is thinking that there is a most correct language. Maybe that’s about being as explicit as possible, but this is so terribly verbose it becomes difficult to handle. Aristotle was dense because he wanted to be explicit about what he was saying so that you would be on the same page.

Being as explicit as possible isn’t the answer because depending on how specialized you are, how much of an expert you are in a domain, the more meaning is behind the words you use, and the less other people understand them. The more specialized you become, the more explicit you can become and it just gets worse.

I run into the same problem with explaining the context of something. Whenever I explain something I end up going off on a tangent about the context or history of the thing because I want the listener to understand it as much as I do. I want them to re-experience the same “aha!” as I did.

This usually ends up bad. My whole thing is about inspiration, and this kind of approach can be very boring, which is sort of the opposite of inspiration. Kathy Sierra argues you should skip the formal introductory stuff because often enough it is just boring.

Context is important, but the important context is the one of the listener. When you communicate something, for the greatest impact, you need to know the audience so that you know what level of explicitness to use and what can remain implicit.

The whole “arguing semantics” thing kind of made sense, but not entirely until I read this definition: “The individual meanings of words, as opposed to the overall meaning of a passage.” As in, “You’re arguing semantics and completely ignoring my point.”

Then it made sense. It can be very easy to dissect something looking for meaning, such as in the individual words. But that can be very counter-productive. Why? Duh! Analyses vs synthesis? We’re forgetting about the whole and the context of that whole.

So this relates to systems thinking. The meaning of the parts don’t matter as much as the meaning of the passage as a whole. There’s further meaning to be found in the context of that passage, etc. Standard systemic ideas.

That makes sense. Somebody says something trying to make a point, and you could argue about the meaning of the words that may or may not have been incorrectly used, but that’s not useful for the purpose of communication.

However! For the purpose of spreading knowledge, it’s very useful! Because even if you understand what they said when they used a wrong word, by ignoring it and acknowledging that you know what they mean, you’re reinforcing their incorrect use of the word and they’ll feel good about using it next time.

It’s like when somebody stops you and corrects your spelling or grammar. Completely off the point, sometimes annoying, but very useful! The only way to learn is by making mistakes, but you have to know they’re mistakes.

Now I want to talk about experience design. Like I said, semantics are important to me. Meaning is important to me. When I design anything, I need it to reinforce proper meaning. Of course, at the same time, it has to be compatible with people’s mental models or it breaks the cardinal rule of usability: don’t make me think!

Let me give you an example. I’ll use Apple because they’re a great example of a company that tries to take responsibility as designers. Unlike Microsoft. Who doesn’t know very much about that.

This is a bit related to my Create New rant from a while back. Really the point of that was what I’m talking about now.

So in Windows you have a menu in your applications and to exit it using the menu, the convention is that Exit is under File. Does this make sense? No. File as a top level menu is supposed to relate to the files or documents that the application works with. Its sub menu items are things like Close, New, Open, Print and these are all actions relating to files.

Microsoft will put Exit under this menu. Because that’s where they put it before and that’s where people are used to it being. Are you exiting the file? No. You’re exiting the application.

This is why in OS X there is an Application menu that’s labeled as the title of the application. Quit is under this menu, not under File. People from Windows will complain and become confused, but pretty quickly find it under the application menu.

What’s wrong with the way Microsoft does it? Does it matter? It gets the point across, but it trains the user to build this dumb relationship with File and Exit. File then becomes much less meaningful. You don’t think of it as a menu for file operations, you begin to think of it as “that first menu item that has most of the operations I need, including Exit.”

In that way, it’s making users dumber.

Just like MySpace’s use of “commenting” which has become a messaging system. It’s close to but not equal to the actual act of “commenting” and MySpace is making their users dumber by reinforcing it instead of adapting the UI to change the language to mean something more accurate.

And you say, but hey, that’s just how language evolves. Kids today still know what comment means, but they also use it to talk about leaving a public message on their MySpace profile.

Sure. But does it have to be that way? I mean… it’s bad. It’s corrosive. It’s corrosive the same way socially accepted acts of downloading music and remixing copyrighted material, something kids today are doing more and more, is deemed illegal. Do you not understand the implications of this in their growing assumptions about laws? Do you really want coming generations to feel comfortable breaking the law on a daily basis? (And in this case the point is the laws should adapt because you can’t prevent cultural evolution)

In a subversive sort of way, it’s good. Sure, questioning “laws” is a great thing. It just seems that in this case, where they’re devaluing a system that was intended to maintain the integrity of our nation, it might be a bad thing.

Okay, so maybe I’m arguing semantics again. Is this really counter-productive? Is it worth designing something with accurate semantics? Am I just like those linguists that would say kids are ruining our language when they had ruined the language of linguists before them?

I still can’t say exactly why it’s important. Why it matters. Why I should even be defending this. Obviously for some reason I’m just driven to and I can’t exactly explain why.

This reminds me of beer. I will now talk about beer.

I think most people don’t like the taste of beer when they first try it. Without wanting whatever results of drinking it (getting a buzz, social acceptance, etc), there’s no incentive to drinking something you don’t like the taste of. The argument of beer drinkers will be that you get used to the taste. And the beer newb says, “Well what if I don’t want to get used to it?”

That makes plenty of sense if the reason they don’t want to get used to it is sort of a moral reason. They don’t want to get into the habit of drinking, they don’t want to conform, whatever. However, it becomes very strange when they don’t want to get used to it because they don’t like the idea of being used to something that tastes bad now. It’s a decision that is based on a current assumption that they know will be obsoleted if they choose to get used to it.

How is a decision in this case better or worse in either direction? Hm…

Back to semantics. Meaning is important because it’s useful. I think the semantic web is the best example of this. It’s the difference between data and information. To be “irresponsible” with semantics, especially when communicating to a mass audience, such as with designing an experience like MySpace or Windows, is to encourage a culture where the usefulness of meaning is devalued.

I’m not sure what the implications of that are, but it sounds bad. Even though it probably isn’t! What do you think?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 8:35 am and is filed under Design, Social, Philosophy, Systems Theory, Models, Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.