Reflecting Meaning of User Experience：Semiotics Approach to Product Architecture Design KEYWORDS : Product Architecture, Semiotics, SAPAD, Signification, Culture Research in product architecture design has been addressing user related issues such as usability and affordance in order to enhance product efficiency, accessibility as well as safety. Yet, issues related to the question how people adopt, position and use new products in different environments, situations and modalities of use have not been well addressed. This paper examines how Semiotic Approach to Product Architecture Design (SAPAD) can be applied to the design of spatial organization of functional systems with an example of kitchen that embodies and reflect functional, cultural and lifestyle requirements of different users. First, the Semiotic Ladder framework introduced by Stamper that addresses six levels of interpretive mechanism was applied to
Name / Surname
the user observation data in order to understand how users interpret individual components and subsystems
Xi Zhang
and to identify structure of meaning and values formed by the user through the usage process. Then the structure was used as a basis for developing the system architecture. There are three main questions to the research:
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1. Why the Semiotic Approach to Product Architecture Design（SAPAD）can be a
Industrial design, User
bridge to connect User Research and Product Architecture？
Experience & Service design
2. How do we translate the users’ language, behavior and culture into design opportunities when we do design studies? 3.How do we again the opportunities through using the SAPAD framework to re-
Supervisor
search Cooking Activity in a Home Kitchen in Central China？
Prof. Hu Fei Prof. Keiichi Sato
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Bibliography Ulrich K. T. and Steven D. E., Product design and development, MacGraw-Hill, New York,1995. Stamper R., Signs, Norms, and Information Systems, Signs of Work, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, Germany,1996, pp.349-397. Hu F, Sato K, Zhang X, et al., Semiotic basis for designing product architecture, In: the 19th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED13), Seoul, 2013, pp. 19-22.