What is Next for Design Semiotics Research? Searching for epistemological answers in design outcomes

Abstract

Although Industrial Design definition has been extended to a strategic problem-solving process, design has been criticized as a scientific discipline. How then to cope with a research field embedded in a dichotomy between theory and practice? This is the question we addressed aiming to foster the debate on the possibility of developing in-field semiotics. The exposed and presented poster displayed elements of a methodological research framework funded by Whirlpool Latin America and FAPEMIG (Brazil). Such a framework was aimed to tap into pragmatistic features of artifacts. Supported by ethnographic methods, it was empirically tested. This extended abstract describes the poster, which exhibited the aforementioned research framework and its empirical and theoretical outcomes. Its contributions may address design issues by proposing theoretical models, which broaden the comprehension of the interplay derived from development, fruition, and analysis of artifacts. In further development stages, this comprehension might contribute to general design activities.