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The meaning of these signs must be learned. We aren’t born knowing that red means stop and green means go; these are social conventions we must internalize if they are to communicate their intended meaning to us. And knowing what the colors of the lights mean is not enough: we must also understand the social hierarchies and functional objectives of the environment these colors are enabling. For example, green and red lights have a different meaning on a Christmas tree than they do on a traffic light.

A useful framework for understanding how this works was postulated by media theorist Neil Postman. Postman argued that effective communication required a shared understanding of the social relations between the agents that participated in an interaction, their goals in the interaction, and the particular vocabulary they used when interacting. He called this set of conditions “the semantic environment the agents were operating in.”⁵

For example, think of the differences between science and religion. You participate in either field to pursue different goals: furthering your understanding of the natural world in the case of science and enhancing you spiritual development in the case of religion. You pursue these goals by using particular social constructs (the priesthood/layperson hierarchy in the case of religion and the peer review process in the case of science) and specialized vocabulary (the language of prayer and scripture in the case of religion and the taxonomies of particular disciplines in the case of science). Science and religion are two areas of human interaction that create and employ different semantic environments.

For you to understand what is going on in any situation—for the communication to make sense—you must abide by the norms of the semantic environment that you’re operating in. Attempting to use a religious approach and terminology while performing scientific research would result in bad science. The semantic environment of science allows you to use language to pursue the goals of science effectively by constraining you to a particular context. Your agreement to abide by these constraints is what makes it possible for meaningful communication to happen in this context, and for science to happen at all.

Often, these constraints are implicit and must be learned, as in science and religion. However, sometimes they are explicitly stated. Consider speed limits: there is nothing physically constraining you from driving as fast as you can down any particular road. But society has collectively agreed that some constraints are necessary in order to share the roads (goal) safely, so there are signs (a particular type of vocabulary) in the physical environment to tell you what the speed limit is for the particular stretch of road you’re in. If you exceed the stated limit, you run the risk of being ticketed by a law enforcement officer (social hierarchy). Thus, speed limits create a semantic environment that you use to interact safely in the roadways.

Nothing about this sign physically constrains the driver from going too fast; its role is purely semantic.

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Software, too, creates a semantic environment. When somebody opens a software application, she does so because she has a particular use (goal) in mind. The application also employs a particular vocabulary that has special meanings in that context. For example, imagine someone (let’s call her Lillian) opens Microsoft Word because she wants to write a document (goal). When Lillian opens the application, she sees a primary navigation bar that presents the following choices:

Microsoft Word’s primary navigation bar.

The words in this user interface—Home, Insert, Design, Layout, etc.—have particular meanings when used within Word. Lillian knows that “Home” here does not refer to her home in the real world. While its use in this context may not be entirely obvious to her at first (after all, “home” is a fairly generic term), she knows that in this case it’s being used in a way that is particular to Microsoft Word—even if this is the first time she has even opened the app. The same is true for all the other words in the navigation bar.

Word’s primary navigation system also includes icons. As with the words above them, these, too, have specialized meanings when used in this context. Many of them may be familiar to Lillian, but that’s only because she’s encountered them before, either in previous versions of Word or in similar applications. These icons have specific meanings when used in this context. One of the challenges a new user of Word faces is learning the meanings of these things in this particular context. (“I wonder what this button does? Oh, I see—that means right align.”) The set of words, phrases, icons, and other semantic elements in Microsoft Word’s user interface creates a semantic environment that should make it possible for Lillian to achieve her goal of writing a document. How much instruction she will require to learn the particularities of the environment depends on many factors, including her level of experience with similar applications.

Microsoft Word is a general-purpose application; its potential user base is anyone who needs to write something. That’s a very broad remit! Because of this, Word’s designers need to be careful with the language they select so that it’s common enough to be broadly understood, yet particular enough so that users know what they can do in the various parts of the application. Other applications have narrower audiences. For example, I once worked on the design of a software system that served as a marketplace for buyers and sellers of energy in regional electricity grids. This was a job with a very particular vocabulary that was only meaningful to the people who worked in this industry. Terms and acronyms that might have been completely baffling to you and me were obvious to these people when used in this context. Since the software that would support their goals would not be used by a general audience, the semantic environment manifested in its user interface leveraged the industry’s specialized language to reduce the new user’s learning curve.

As a mental exercise, try examining a website or app’s navigation system in the absence of company names or logos. How much do the navigation systems tell you about what the place is? How does this change what you understand them to mean?

Here’s an example:

I’ve covered the logos on this website so that you can’t tell which company it is. (Although if you live in the U.S., you may be able to guess from the colors.) Look at the words on the navigation bars. You don’t need to know anything else about this environment to guess that you’re in a bank. One of the labels even says it outright: “Banking.” This changes the meaning of the other words there. For example, the word “Learning” could point to many things. However, knowing that you’re in a bank helps you constrain the possible meanings of “learning” to something like “educational material for becoming more financially savvy.”

To summarize, the words you use in the navigation systems and headings of websites not only help you find what you’re looking for, but they also help you understand what you’re looking at. This particular group of words set in this particular order creates a context that gives the meaning to the whole picture. They tell you where you are and what you can do there.