Multimodal Semiotics and Collaborative Design

designers are not necessarily geographically distant, but their co-design practices are mediated by
their avatars.
The final case study includes observations and in-depth interviews with the designers of Pop Art
Lab (PAL), a streaming music sim (virtual island) in SL that is designed and built as a result of the
inworld interactions among various individuals, who are not only geographically but also socioculturally
and professionally distant. I have interviewed the four members of the PAL design team,
and conducted various ethnographic observations about the use of the virtual island, mainly
because the (fourth) design of PAL has been done by the time. PAL is a substantial example of the
naturally-occurring situations of collaborative design, where like-minded users come together
through the social world of SL and realize their collective visions.
Case study method, as a research strategy and focus, is usually employed to obtain a deeper
understanding of a situation and make a more comprehensive theoretical and empirical
assessment of social reality in a context-dependent, interpretative approach. Rather than providing
“thick” generalizations from single cases, case study allows researchers to explore individuals,
organizations and processes in detail and requires the observer to focus on simple through complex
interventions, actors and operations, relationships, communities and/or programs to reveal the
multiplicity of narratives to tell the stories (Baxter and Jack 2008). Case study is considered as a
focus and/or strategy on what is to be studied (Stake 2005, Thomas 2011). Therefore, the
possibilities of generalization and theory-building are closely related to how the research questions
were formulated, and what procedures are applied to produce the most comprehensive and
representative data that is available within the case(s). Robert E. Stake (2005) mentions that if a
case study research should be designed to emphasize particularity and uniqueness in its theorybuilding
approach, the researchers should consider several aspects of the case contexts, including
nature of the case, historical background, physical setting, potential informants, other contexts (i.e.
political, legal, aesthetic), and other cases through which it is recognized. As explained earlier, my
intentions in constructing the social semiotic framework as an analytical matrix between elements
of context situation and semiotic functions of sign systems are directly related to the
methodological choices. All three case studies that I have observed included co-designers with
different backgrounds, skills and interests in participation. While the Metrotopia team came
together by the research team as an external initiator, PAL’s design team is a result of inworld
socialization and friendships. On the other hand, the context of the Communication and Design
Workshop has been relatively more synthetic; in that, the requirements of the pedagogic agenda
had to be taken into consideration at times.
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