A semiotic analysis of sounds in personal computers: Toward a semiotic model of human-computer interaction

We compared three types of auditory interface in personal computing environments: verbal messages, earcons, and auditory icons. We applied Peirce's sign theory to the three auditory interfaces to conceptualize verbal messages as "dicent symbol legisigns," earcons as "dicent indexical legisigns," and auditory icons as "remantic iconic sinsigns." Based on theories of the triple triangle model for sign production (Kim 2000), we suggested that (a) the three auditory interfaces demand different levels of mental effort for interpretation and ( b) the extent to which users are able to interpret the auditory signs of a computer correctly correlates to the communicability of its interface.