Research On The "Misreading" Phenomenon In Visual Communication Design

Misinterpretation is a concept of linguistic theory,which means the phenomenon of misunderstanding the text message when interpret and comprehend so that deviate from the original idea of the producer.As visual message has became a significant part of daily lives,this phenomenon appears in visual communication area as well.Reading visual messages requires the ability of perception and comprehend,the misinterpretation of visual message appears because of the different level of this ability.As one of the visual messages,pictogram could be misinterpreted in many ways.The inaccurate explanation of medical-based pictograms could result in violation of medical advice,and symptoms can range from gain less treatment benefit to get ill.To address this problem,this paper analyzes what factors contribute to the misinterpretation of pictograms by using semiotic theory.Based on this,this paper studied the misinterpretation of medical-based pictograms.First of all,from the visual message in medical instruction,the research defines different kinds of medical based pictograms.Then using the linguistic theory to explain the misinterpretation of visual messages,deconstructing various of visual message misinterpretation with the theory of semiotics.As a user-centered research,this research combines process of information broadcasting with visual message constructions,which contains the processes of perception,cognizance and operation,in order to analyzing the stage that this phenomenon appears.Finally,combining with research outcome and survey data,present the method of improving misinterpretation in visual message and finish the redesign of medical-based pictograms.The author has also carried on the ductility of the thesis.The research in misinterpretation of pictograms is divided into the following three parts of work:1,the theory study:using the theory of semiotics,linguistic and psychology to distinguish the types of medical-based pictograms and different reason of misinterpretation.2,the use of case analysis:combining with practical cases and existing researches,find the method to deduce the reasons of misinterpretation.3,the experimental approach:in this research,the experimental method of questionnaire and interview are also been used.During the questionnaire process,compare the data that collected with exist research data to prove the speculation.According to the one-to-one interviews,observing the phenomenon of misinterpretation in people from different culture groups.These methods are used to develop a new design method that reduce the possibility of misinterpretation.It proves that the reason of misinterpreting pictograms can be explained by the theories of semiotics and psychology.This research aims to illuminate the visual grammar of medical-based pictograms and reduce the risk that visual messages in pictograms are misunderstood.