Semiotics as a Theoretical Foundation of

This paper sets forth semiotics as a viable theoretical foundation of information design. In addition to presenting a brief history of the development of semiotics it also gives three examples of how semiotic principles are applied to specific fields of study. These areas include information systems engineering, organizational decision support systems, information intensive web interfaces, and agent-based ecommerce systems. Although some have criticized semiotics for being arbitrarily applied, the literature presented in this paper supports it as an effective theory of information design which provides many practical applications.