TRACK 06 THE UEMG TALKS ABOUT ITSELF
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CHAPTER 61. Fragments of Memory: ASI – Arquivo de Som e Imagem: management of collection of documents collected in the Centro de Estudos em Design da Imagem Escola de Design/ UEMG [Marcelina das Graças de Almeida, Luana de Oliveira Rocha, Vanessa Villaça]
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CHAPTER 62. Geraes creative communities: Social design applied to crafts production in Nova Lima [Daniela Martins, Rita de Castro Engler, Nadja Maria Mourão, Thabata Brito]
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CHAPTER 63. Contributions in interaction design with communities: A practice of sustainability for artisan production with waste plant [Nadja Maria Mourão, Rita de Castro Engler]
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CHAPTER 64. Design, culture, and semiotics: Towards a model to analyze semantic-cultural features [Felipe Domingues, Dijon De Moraes, Regina Álvares Dias]
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CHAPTER 65. User centered design methods: an experiment about the perception of products’ sustainability [Ivan Santos, Lia Krucken, Sebastiana Luiza de Bragança Lana]
685
CHAPTER 66. Design and social innovation: The process of joint construction of the Agroecological Fair of UFRJ [Laura de Souza Cota Carvalho, Roberto dos Santos Bartholo Júnior]
695
CHAPTER 67. Quantitative analysis of the influence of facades and roofs in the urban thermal comfort using infrared themorgraphy [Rosemary Bom Conselho Sales, Solange Andere Pedra, Cristiane B. C. S. Alvarenga, Maria Teresa P. Aguilar]
704
CHAPTER 68. Embroidery in the context of humanization, ‘Mulheres da Vila’ [Adriana Dornas Moura, Marcelina das Graças de Almeida]
712
CHAPTER 69. ESDI/UERJ and ED/UEMG: The pioneers of design education in Brazil [Regina Álvares Dias, Giselle Hissa Safar]
722
CHAPTER 70. Importance of tactile perception and interface materials in the design of tactile models: A case study of the National Congress [Artur Caron Mottin, Paulo Miranda Oliveira, Regina Álvares Dias]
733
CHAPTER 71. Noise in work chairs: The sound pollution as a quality instrument and signalization [Eduardo J. Wilke Alves, José Nunes Filho, Gilberto Almeida Jr, Regina Álvares Dias]
745
CHAPTER 72. Design and urban garbage collection [Rita de Castro Engle, Lucas Righi de Almeida, Paula Carvalho Soeiro, Renata Dias]
756
CHAPTER 73. The design for housing as reflex of the new consumption society [Anderson Horta, Rita Aparecida C. Ribeiro]
764
CHAPTER 74. Design and humanities from a meta-trans-disciplinary approach [Maristela Mitsuko Ono]
772
CHAPTER 75. Thermal viability studies of polymeric composites with curaua fiber (ananas erectifolius) using infrared thermograph with focus on ambience confort [Orlando Gama Silva Junior, Patrícia Santiago de Oliveira Patricio, Rosemary Bom Conselho Sales]
781
CHAPTER 76. Innovation in the techniques of decorative finish on Brazilian ornamental seeds: Design applied to products with sustainable profile [Sebastiana Luiza de Bragança Lana, Lia Paletta Benatti]
789
CHAPTER 77. Environmental requirements on the design of consumer electronics: Contributions to the obsolescence management [Igor Goulart Toscano Rios, Rosemary Bom Conselho Sales, Regina Álvares Dias]
798
CHAPTER 78. Gems and jewelery: Management by design applied to the value chain of local productive arrangements [Raquel Canaan, Marcelina das Graças de Almeida, Lia Krucken]
CHAPTER 64 Design, culture, and semiotics: Towards a model to analyze semantic-cultural features1 Felipe Domingues
[email protected] Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais, Escola de Design, Belo Horizonte / Brazil, M.Sc. Dijon De Moraes
[email protected] Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais, Escola de Design, Belo Horizonte / Brazil, PhD, Rector and Professor Regina Álvares Dias
[email protected] Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais, Escola de Design, Belo Horizonte / Brazil, Dr., professor and researcher of the Center T&C.
Abstract This paper reports on a study aiming at the empirical validation of a methodological model to analyze semantic information for designing global products. The study draws on semiotics, and applies ethnographic techniques and Pajek software as a supporting tool to analyze semiotic data. The results provide evidence on the adequacy of the data collection techniques and data analysis methods herein proposed, provide some insights on the model proposal, and confirm that it is feasible and valid to join together ethnographic methods and product design processes. Keywords design; semiotics; global products; household appliances.
1 This study was supported by the Research Foundation of the State of Minas Gerais in partnership with Whirlpool Latin America.
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Introduction We are now supposed to live with what Levitt (1990) refers to as economies of scale, for corporations of every size have taken advantage of technological progress to design products substantially adapted to local needs at extremely low costs. This study takes an empirical approach to investigate how global products, design, culture, and semiotics relate and how their relationships contribute to the development and positioning of global products. More specifically, this paper provides insights into a research model under development to study the relationship between global products, design, and semiotics and assess its methodological adequacy, efficiency, and efficacy. In a previous study, we took a theoretical approach to investigate how design, culture, semiotics, and global products interplay. The study showed that design is a relevant tool to localize global products. Because of our dependence on symbols, it is desirable that objects materialize semantic codes to come to fruition in culture-specific contexts. Against this background, semiotics has evolved as a science that can adequately support empirical studies on the semantics of global products. Management literature on design and global production points to two perspectives on international market positioning: standardization, and adaptation. Contrary to the commonsensical notion of differentiation, adaptation in the global market does not focus on changing the products’ physical features, but rather on the capability of transferring intangible features to the objects. This is evident in Moraes’ (2008) argument that design, as a discipline, has drawn on the social sciences, aimed at anticipating the needs of future users. Design has thus evolved as a multidisciplinary and transversal domain that is capable of providing timely responses while remaining open to interactions (Moraes, 2010). Contemporary studies on how meanings are conceived have focused not only on communicative features related to form and function, but also, and more importantly, on how cultural reality is created and sustained (Chandler, 2007). In this context, semiotics emerges as a crucial instrument to understanding such issues as metaphors and identities of objects of use. Generally speaking, semiotics is a scientific basis for designing objects that carry predetermined functions at the primary and secondary levels and are equally subject to being assigned new functions at both levels (Domingues, 2011a). Regardless of Eco’s (2005) contention that designers are supposed to manipulate variable primary functions and open secondary functions, they are also able to deal with variable secondary functions. Domingues (2011b) provides evidence that supports such a claim and says it is possible to build on ethnographic research to develop research models and analyze cultural semantic categories that support the design of global products. Figure 1 shows the theoretical semiotics-based model underlying the methodology used in this study.
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FIG. 1 Model of interplay of functional and symbolic meanings Source: Domingues, F. (2011a).
Global products, material culture, and semiotics Companies in general face complex issues when developing global products. As Levitt (1990) argues, ethnic specificities are traces of cultural heritage, likes, and standards. However, as Levitt also points out, some of such traces slowly open up space for changes while, controversially, others simply evolve globally to make way to the homogenization of ethnic-specific standards at the world level. This does not imply the end, but rather the widening of specificity and, in the face of current communication and technological progress, differences between users should be carefully assessed. In this context, design has been assigned the responsibility of efficiently adapting products (McCracken, 1988). As Levitt (1990) claims, technological modernization opens the way to design-based differentiation and other factors related to the market positioning of products. Management literature features discussions on competition, differentiation, and positioning of products in the international market. The relationship of design, marketing, and other disciplines involved in product development are complex, and their integration is relevant to developing appropriate products. Scholars have observed that taking multidisciplinary approaches is relevant to understanding how product design provides superior experiences and adds values to the users (Kotler and Rath, 1984). Nevertheless, studies on which factors should be integrated into the design process to add such value remain incipient. Models of the development of global products lack specific data on the interactions between users and products and their typical use. In our view, this can be obtained by identifying and understanding semantic values, advancing the use of eth-
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nographic information, which has been restricted to the alignment of forms, functions, materials, and textures. (Boztepe, 2007), rather than focusing on the possibilities of semantic interactions between individuals and the objects of use. Such semantic interactions are strongly related to the concepts of affordances, material culture, and identity. The focus of the term “affordance” relies on the possibility of an individual performing an action within the scope of his or her own context (Gibson, 1986). In applying the concept “affordance” within the design domain, certain objects and environments can be considered as being more or less adequate than others in specific functions, and it is their physical features that assure their adequacy to either one or another task (Lidwell et al, 2010). This implies that designers who develop user-oriented projects design products focusing on their potential meaning (Krippendorff, 2006). As product design involves physical objects, designers should be attentive to how shared cultural conventions within social groups directly impact on the actual affordances. The purposes that individuals assign to objects derive from cultural processes, and designers should observe symbolic features that are intrinsic to the material production. It is the production of goods and values that generates and reflects a society’s cultural identity (Bomfim, 1999). One’s identity is expressed in a product through three features: its very existence, origin, and quality (Nyemeyer, 2007). In addition, Celaschi (2010) points to several identities existing in or aggregate to the products (e.g., the designers’, the material’s, the territory’s, and the users’). From the authors’ standpoint, objects of use are assigned symbolic meanings and convey primary information and complex systems of signs, as defined and described in Roland Barthes’ notion of myth. As Eco (2005) claims, objects of use do not only function, but they also communicate. Every use is converted into signs with the existence of a social group; therefore, an object that has a function enables and promotes this existence (Barthes, 2006). The use of objects goes beyond their functions: they can denote and connote specific functions depending on the cultural system (Eco, 2004). The notions of denotation and connotation are crucial within semiotics. Concomitantly, the terms signified and signifier provide analytical tools to describe two meanings: denotative meaning (level of the signifier) and connotative meaning (level of the signified) (Hjelm, 2002). Such concepts refer to different levels of meaning, which explains why Barthes (1999) introduced the notion of new orders of signification. The first order is denotation, i.e., the sign comprises both signified and signifier. The second order is connotation in that the denotative sign is used as a signifier and assigned a new meaning, referred to as myth (Barthes, 2006), or as cultural discourses within semiotics (Chandler, 2007). The myth involves only the sign resulting from the first semiological chain, which concomitantly gives rise to the wider system of the myth (Chandler, 2007). Therefore, the myth comprises two semiological systems: the language and the system itself, referred to as object language and metalanguage (Barthes, 1999), as shown in Figure 2.
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FIG. 2 The double integration of the semiological system within the myth Source: based on Barthes (1999).
As previously stated , objects of use can be deemed systems of signs, which should be characterized through contextualizing the signifier, culturally building on existing codes (Eco, 2005). This semiotic imposition admits the existence of a signifier within the signs of the objects of use, and this very existence enables the production of meaning or different functions. It is necessary to separate primary from secondary functions: primary (denoted) functions are the initial functions, whereas secondary (connoted) functions are symbolically derived (Eco, 2004). In denotative terms, the object of use is the precise signifier of its function (Eco, 2005). However, certain forms may go unrecognized as determinants of certain functions (e.g., those of symbolic nature) and demand the awareness of a specific code for them to come to fruition. The assignment of functions also implies a wider range of all communicative attributions of an object, as the symbolic connotations of an artifact are no less useful than its functional denotations (Eco, 2005). This means that before turning into actions, the functions codified by objects of use are classes of possible functions, or cultural units (Eco, 2004), and because the functions of objects of use correspond to cultural units, the codes for their conception are found in cultural features and, hence, lie simultaneously within cultural anthropology and semiotics.
Methodology This non-structured, exploratory research aimed to systematically and qualitatively analyze cultural and symbolic features related to the forms of use of household appliances, more specifically those within the subcategory “fridges”. Data collection involved participant and non-participant observation, photographic records, and in-depth interviews. Such techniques were applied in this order and unfolded in two data collection stages (Data collection and analysis 1: observations and photographic records, and Data collection and analysis 2: in-depth interviews). The photographic records and participant and non-participant observations aimed at collecting non-verbalized or non-verbalizable behaviors and images that could support the investigation. The in-depth interviews, in turn, aimed at collecting more comprehensive and detailed information and confirm the data ob-
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tained through the other techniques. As non-participant observers, the researchers registered the facts as they happened without intervening in the participants’ daily lives. As a participant observer, however, the head researcher participated on site in the daily activities of one of the participants (I2). The in-depth interviews were semi-structured and focused on collecting clues or insights into (i) discursive practices that could inform the researchers on how the objects (fridges) are assigned meanings in use, and (ii) the semantic, context-specific relationship between users and products. The data collection involved twelve individuals. The non-probabilistic sampling criteria involved non-random data selection of individuals from “social class C”2 at the researchers’ discretion. The snowball technique was applied to comply with the research criterion of similarity across research participants. Pajek was used to process data and carry out semiotic analyses. More specifically, it was used to visualize symbolic links and their possible connections with a view of gaining an understanding of the meanings of the products (fridges) in use and in their contexts. Data were triangulated and analyzed as to discursive practices (Spink et al, 2004). The final results shed light on the methodological model under construction and the process of user-oriented design of global products.
Field research The field research took place in the city of Belo Horizonte, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. It comprised a voluntary sample of twelve individuals. The individuals were sampled by convenience with the criteria being that they belonged to “social class C” and approached through snowballing to assure the participation of individuals with similar social characteristics. Acquaintanceship was a key factor to gaining access to individuals and their income-related data. Participant observation extended over fifteen days only in I2’s domicile. During his stay in I2’s domicile, the head researcher3 observed and shared the fridge used by the residents. Photographic records were produced to register possible changes in the object under scrutiny. Except for the inclusion of an item (calendar) on the external side of the object, no unusual changes were observed in the object other than typical daily usage and daily displacement of food. The calendar and other magnets previously placed on the fridge characterize the use of the object’s external space. Given the impressions of the participant observation, further non-participant observation and photographic records were restricted to three visits to the domiciles of each participant aimed at capturing possible changes that could characterize interferences on the fridges. The impressions (e.g., dialogues and images) collected through observations and photographic records provided insights to the analysis of the preliminary data and the generation of preliminary categories of analysis to support the production of the script of the in-depth interview. Generating the preliminary categories that would support the script of the interviews involved listing and reviewing all relevant features of the participants’ dialogues and utterances and all items that could characterize the users’ interference on the object. The relevant features of the participants’ utterances and dialogues were identified by means of comparative analysis of their discourses as registered in the first stage of the field research. Preliminary categories of analysis were generated drawing on these registers (e.g., organization). Users’ interferences were identified by
2 According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), “social class C” refers to those individuals whose household income ranges from BRL 1530 to BRL 5100. 3 Felipe Domingues.
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means of non-participant and participant observation and preserved in photographic records, and the fridge was divided in parts: top, frontal, and side. The criteria of relevance to justify further analysis of a part were at least 60 % of the sample participants should have interfered once or more with the object, and the interference should be of a semantic nature. The items deemed users’ interferences were listed based on the photographic records – Figure 3.
FIG. 2 Samples of photographic records Source: research data.
After listing the items, specific lists were generated aimed at pinpointing preliminary categories that would be incorporated into the interview scripts. Such categories supported script preparation and were incorporated into the second stage of data collection and analysis. The interview scripts comprised two major parts: checking concepts (Part 1) and semantic and functional checking (Part 2). The analysis of the individuals’ responses led to the generation of 118 new categories, herein understood as semantic categories. Afterwards, Pajek was used to list, differentiate, and indicate degrees of relevance of the categories. Pajek was also used to process and analyze the data produced after Stage 2 of data collection and analysis. Data processing comprised both parts of the script: matching preliminary categories with semantic and conceptual categories (Part 1), and matching with semantic and functional categories (Part 2), as shown in Figures 4 and 5, respectively.
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FIG. 4 Results of category matching (Part 1) Source: research data.
FIG. 4 Results of category matching (Part 2) Source: research data
All 118 categories were included on Pajek to test the feasibility of using it as a tool to support further analyses of a larger number of data on semantic features.
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Results Although some adaptations were necessary in the methodological structure, the study showed the efficiency and efficacy of the sampling technique, the adequacy of the data collection techniques and procedures, the feasibility of using software Pajek to support the research and identify relevant categories of analysis, to analyze the data, and make inferences that are insightful toward gaining a better understanding of the object of study. The criterion “belonging to social class C” did not present any difficulties in accessing individuals to compose the sample, but the researchers believe that access to individuals would be easier if they were offered financial or material compensation. The type of compensation can affect individuals’ opinions; however, this has no bearing on the research results, as the study does not focus on specific brands or types of object, but rather on subjective issues related to the interaction between individuals and object. The research participants are believed to be incapable of identifying semantic features that could generate biased data. The use of the snowball technique proved to be efficient and effective, as each participant recommended on the average an additional 3.2 potential individuals to be included in the sample. The data collection techniques and procedures proved to be valid for the investigation. Although participant observation has not been relevant for data collection in the study so far, it should still be considered for further investigations. Non-participant observation granted access to the participants’ domiciles to examine their fridges and identify their on-site features. Photographic records were added to such observations as a means of preserving relevant information on the participants’ fridges. This procedure was as effective as expected. The images collected at distinct moments of data collection in the participants’ domiciles supported the creation of categories of analysis, building on the hints left by the users in or on their fridges. The use of photographic records also supported the identification of features that were not detected during observations and reduced the researcher’s length of stay in the domiciles. The categories were translated into questions that were later incorporated into an interview script. The interviews provided access to semantic features involved in the interaction between the users and their fridges. As expected, Pajek provided valuable insights to validate assumptions and supported the research with the identification of central categories of analysis . Finally, data analysis and the preliminary insights regarding the investigation showed that, from a theoretical perspective, the data point to semantic and functional interfaces in that users assigned not only the expected, basic functions to the object, but also new functions, herein referred to as first-level semantic and cultural functions or semantic and functional features. This term refers to the new functions assigned to the object that are strictly related to its use, i.e., functions that do not involve social status.
Final Remarks This study accomplished the objective of empirically identifying, listing, and analyzing theoretical relations involving design, culture, and semiotics that are intrinsic to the semantic interaction established between users and objects. The theoretical dimension of the research supports the logical contiguity and connections between the central themes: global products, culture, and semiotics. The results point to the potential of empirically identifying semantic interferences on the interaction between individuals and their objects. Field experience proved to be valid and further studies would add to the investigation of the semantics of global products. Suggestions for further studies include involving foreign researchers
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in the collection and data analysis to enlarge data and ensure accuracy in the identification of semantic and cultural aspects (this suggestion draws on the head researcher’s informal experience with investigations in international contexts) and bringing researchers and designers together to increase research validity, adequacy, and data accuracy. In view of the results, the complexity of the topic, and the nature of this study, further research is crucial not only to supplement and validate the proposed methodology , but also to broaden the knowledge on the complexities involved in assigning signs and significations to objects, especially to global products.
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