Back to the Future: A Usability Model of Hypertext Based on the Semiotics of C.S. Peirce

Though C.S. Peirce's triads of sign-object-interpretant and icon-index-symbol are often cited in passing, few are aware that Peirce (circa 1900) expanded these triads to describe ten categories of sign (three kinds of icon, four kinds of index, and three kinds of symbol). We show how Peirce's ten sign types correspond to ten distinct types of visuals common in 21st-century discourse, i.e. hypertext, and how a Peircean understanding of each visual type leads to principles of effective visual design, on the Web or in other forms of hypertext