semioticslisted

# Semiotics ## Coverage Semiotic analysis as the study of sign systems in software interfaces and communication. Covers: - **Foundational models** — Peirce's icon / index / symbol trichotomy; Saussure's signifier / signified dyad; Barthes' denotation / connotation / myth layers - **Visual semiotics for interfaces** — color as sign (denotation + connotation, with the never-color-alone rule), shape and position as sign channels (top-left, top-right, bottom-right, circle, triangle, pill) - **Iconography as a sign system** — consistency, metaphor clarity, pairing rules, system coherence; common breakdowns (icon polysemy, opacity, cultural collision, obsolete metaphor) - **Affordance theory** — real affordance, perceived affordance, signifier, anti-affordance; the rule that disabled states need a strong anti-affordance - **Code and API semiotics** — naming, variable, endpoint, and error-message signs; the rule that vague names like `processData()` are signifier failures even when the implementation works - **Semiotic-coherence audit** — the checklist for reviewing a surface across color, icon, affordance, and cross-surface consistency The skill operates *above* microcopy execution and color-token math, and *below* formal ontology. It owns the question "what does this sign communicate to a user?", not "what should the button say?", "what hex value is this?", or "what class hierarchy do these things belong to?". ## Philosophy Every interface element is already communicating, w