Semantics and The Word "Design"
March 03, 2004 | 
18 Comments
Semantics. Not “semantics” as in XHTML structure, but rather “semantics” as in attaching preconceived meanings to words or phrases. I say “development and production” — you say “test and development” or whatever. Many people place different meanings on the terms “information architecture,” for example. It’s always a sticky proposition isn’t it?
I don’t think there is anything else that I’ve seen cause more problems among teams I’ve worked on and in discussions I’ve been involved in. It’s constant and seems to be something people have a very hard time getting past.
I don’t know how much time I’ve witnessed wasted in meetings or in online discussion over simple semantic differences, but it’s been too much. It’s frustrating.
When I come across this problem I try to define the meaning of a term beforehand. There are times when I even go as far to make up a word that nobody in the discussion will have any preconceived definition for. At lease as it relates to the topic of discussion.
For example, down at the hospital, we have several kinds of satellite Web sites or sub sites (see right there I ran into this very problem) that share similar attributes. Our original thought was to call them “Centers of Excellence” but that raised some issues with various groups within the hospital, it wasn’t exactly accurate. We tried several terms, but the all seemed to have problems with one group or another. There seemed to be real problems getting past this, so, for now, we call them “bananas.”
It’s kind of silly, but it works.
The Problem With The Word “Design”
A large semantical issue that seems to pop up quite a bit on this site, and others like it, is the open-ended use of the word “design.” Design can mean a lot of things, and when used conjures up different things to different people.
Here is the Dictionary.com definition. That’s pretty damn broad.
“Design,” on it’s own isn’t a very useful word in some cases and to be used effectively really should be qualified. To me there is a huge difference between the following:
- Graphic Design
- Web Design
- Interface Design
- Information Design
- etc.
When someone uses the word “design” it seems that, more often than not, it’s not qualified. How are people supposed to view that? It’s too open-ended.
I’ve been guilty of this and hope to change that going forward. Part of the reason for this post. It can happen even when the open-ended use of the word “design” is intended.
For example in Andrei Herasimchuk’s Design Matters he has to clarify in the comments what he means by “design” and what kind of “design” he is speaking of.
Now, in this particular case, the open-ended use of the word “design” seems to be correct and central to his point in some respects. However, it still caused some confusion for his readers when it got into discussion.
Depending on the situation and topic of discussion the unqualified use of “design” will be fine, but be careful, people are easily thrown by this and depending on where you sit, the term “design” can mean lots of different things.
Graphic design, for example, is not Web design and vise-versa. I don’t know how many times I’ve spoken to people who lump these two together. But that is a whole other post.
Semantic issues are common and usually all it takes is a little extra effort and explanation to clear them up. Sometimes a neutral term will work, and sometimes it’s just as simple as qualifying the term your using. Either way, in any two-way communication, it’s important to be sure everyone involved understands the meaning on the terms used.
As our world grows closer together it’ll become even more important to be clear with the words you use and what you intend them to mean. I can only imagine how some of what I write comes off to people who’s first language isn’t English. But one step at a time eh? I’m still learning to write.
I strongly feel that the responsibility for this should fall on the communicator. I for one plan on doing a better job of avoiding potential semantic issues on this site and would hope those of you who comment her or publish work of your own do the same.
It’ll be a lot of work and a learning process, but worth it.
Filed under: Web Design
Comments
1. Mike P said:
Ha, too funny. Just yesterday I noticed how you often use the term ‘web developer’ and thought how I preferred that to ‘web designer’, the latter for me having a narrower scope.
Also funny that today I posetd on ‘the other’ semantics that you mention in the first sentence…
Posted on March 3, 2004 01:06 PM | #
2. andrew said:
“I say “tomato” — you say “tomoto” and all that.” What? That’s not semantics. That’s just pronunciation.
Posted on March 3, 2004 01:08 PM | #
3. James Craig said:
James Tikalsky just posted a similar idea you may be interested in reading.
Posted on March 3, 2004 02:22 PM | #
4. Keith said:
Andrew! You caught me. I put that in there on purpose just to see how fast it would get pointed out, and for illustrative purposes.
In any case it was much quicker than I’d hoped. Now that I think about it, it doesn’t make any sense to anyone but me, so I removed it. Since the point of my post is about avoiding confusion I think it’s better if I keep that out.
Posted on March 3, 2004 02:28 PM | #
5. Jennifer Grucza said:
I tend to get confused sometimes, since I’m coming from a software engineering background. In that case, the design is not something that can be seen, really. It’s like the blueprint for the implementation. Objects, modules, relationships between them. So when I hear the word design, even in the context of web development, I think of things like separation of content and presentation, usability, organization of the site, and so on. It’s a lot clearer to me if someone says graphic design or presentation or look-and-feel if that’s what they mean.
Posted on March 3, 2004 03:18 PM | #
6. 7 the designer said:
I thought I was the only one who had this complaint! Frankly, the whole “business slang” bores me. It seems that phrases aned descriptions are coined to make the user seem more complex and business savvy (hence, more expensive). Keep it simple, I say!
Posted on March 3, 2004 03:34 PM | #
7. Sean King said:
Hitting another great topic Keith!
Clement Mok (current pres of the AIGA) wrote a great article in Communication Arts last year on the ambiguity of design. He touches on the need for designers to better communicate what we do as “designers”, agreeing on the definition of design, and establishing design as a profession in the view of business.
I reccomend anyone in the web design (or any other design for that matter) give it a read.
Posted on March 3, 2004 06:14 PM | #
8. Christopher said:
This an issue I’ve been grappling with ever since I stared my tech writing career three years ago. I’ve spent entire meetings where we discussed what something should be called or what a particular word or term really means. There are times when this is wasteful and others when it’s crucial to the concepts I’m trying to get across to my audience.
“Business slang”, however, drives me nuts. At work, the mangers/directors are fond of using the term “learnings” which essentially means “the things we learned”. Try saying it out loud. I think there is this belief that cryptic verbosity somehow adds an air of sophistication and authority to an otherwise intelligible statement. Or they just like to make up words so those that use it can, you know, feel like they’re part of the gang, but I digress…
Posted on March 3, 2004 06:17 PM | #
9. Grant said:
I suppose this is true for some. However, throughout my company, for the most part, we have a common set of buzz words that most people understand. When using the word “design” it’s pretty simple to understand what someone is referring to based on the word that precedes it like “web design”, “database design”, “graphic design”, architecture design”, etc. So, I don’t really run into issues where the word “design” causes communication problems. Now acronyms, that’s something else. We need the ACL to create the BOM to post in BOB, so our CMs can quote us via B2B ASAP. =)
Posted on March 3, 2004 10:59 PM | #
10. andreas said:
I agree. I found that it is mostly people who know their stuff very very well who talk about it in plain language. For others, using jargon is often a way of raising their status and/or self-esteem in a particular area. As for “design”
I think whithin a group of similar-minded people it is no problem because they will have acquired their ideas about certain terms from similar fields od knowledge.
However, when you’re talking (or writing for) to customers or to other people from an entirely different background it is certainly better to define your terms before you use them.
Tim Bray wrote a nice post on this:
It leaves both sides happier and more satisfied.
Posted on March 4, 2004 04:48 AM | #
11. andreas said:
Sorry, I have an unfinished sentence in my previous comment. Just forget about “As for desing…”
Posted on March 4, 2004 04:51 AM | #
12. Seth said:
So perfect. I am a “webmaster” (don’t get me started) and handle everything from server-side coding to xHTML and CSS at my organization.
I “design” my organization’s web sites from start to finish.
I often refer to myself as a “designer” in conversation.
My girlfriend works at a web design firm where they have one guy who only does xHTML/CSS, one guy that only does server-side coding, one guy that only does IA, and one guy that actually creates the graphics for the site.
That last guy is the only one who is referred to as a “designer” and my girlfriend gets angry when I say I am a designer.
Drives me effing nuts. I’m sending this post to here immediately. Thanks again.
Posted on March 4, 2004 03:59 PM | #
13. Keith said:
Seth – Sounds like your girl works for a pretty well set up firm, even if they do think “graphics” = “design”.
;)
Posted on March 4, 2004 04:10 PM | #
14. Yvonne Adams said:
This one has bugged me for a number of years, probably because I wasn’t trained as a Graphic designer.
Since most of my early exposure to design was Industrial, Automotive or Architectural, I’ve always looked at the generic term design as one meaning structure or organization towards a particular goal. (at SXSW last year I fear I made most of the room silently scream “suck up!” when I answered Steve Champeon’s question, “what is design?” with the single word “structure”)
I generally insist on specificity, rather than using the generic. As a film-school grad, I’ve personally taken classes in sound design and lighting design. Are they not design because one isn’t seen, and the other lacks typography and known “information?”
A chef can be a designer (certainly the sushi chef would qualify), as can a civil engineer. Let’s not confuse the issue by substituting the generic for the specific in common usage.
Posted on March 5, 2004 08:25 AM | #
15. Seth said:
Keith -
You are correct. They play with the big boys. I work for a small non-profit. Maybe there is some underlying resentment I need to work through :)
Posted on March 5, 2004 01:46 PM | #
16. Andy Budd said:
I’ve just finished a relatively big intranet project, and a large part of the job involved creating an address book application that allows you to look up office and staff information. One of the biggest hurdles was dealing with an organisation who’s structure wasn’t fully defined.
I ended up creating a number of categories including location, office, department, division, job title, job type, role etc. However what we didn’t do at the outset is define what each of these meant. The development went pretty smoothly, but there were often occasions where people got confused between similar sounding items like job title, job type and job role, or office, location and department.
In the end I wrote up a strict definition of each item which allowed everybody to agree on exactly what each thing was, and understand what each other meant. It’s only a small thing, but I defiantly see the benefit of including definitions within your project document to make sure people know exactly what your talking about.
Posted on March 8, 2004 09:01 AM | #
17. renMan said:
I have found that it is always more clear to talk in acronyms whenever possible (AWP). Then when the customer doesn’t know what I am talking about he/she will ask or think we are smart (WAS). Either way, it’s kind of funny (KOF).
In big projects we have started using Project Dictionary (PD)of common terms (CT) and then I print the Hot Ones Real Big (HORB) in the conference room and point to it Whenever Possible (WP).
Much like learning your ABC’s and 123’s, Large Poster Board (LPB) next to the clock works every time.
c.ewe.L8tr.
renMan
Posted on March 8, 2004 11:04 AM | #
18. tomQuick said:
Seth -
I’m very curious as to what you’re girlfriend’s coworker’s title is - the one who codes xhtml and css. If not web designer, then what? Programmer?
Posted on April 5, 2004 12:52 PM | #
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