Multimodal Semiotics and Collaborative Design

in-depth qualitative understanding of inworld design processes, their participants and socially
available resources for making virtual places and artifacts as multimodal sign complexes would
help understand these socio-cultural dimensions of collaborative digital content creation.
A sociocultural perspective of design in collaborative virtual environments can also initiate further
research and discussions on how multimodal competences can be facilitated more efficiently in
design and education of forthcoming virtual world platforms, including the emerging fields of
Web3D, VR and augmented reality.
In the light of these analytical perspectives and the theoretical framework, this research study aims
to illustrate SL as a complex and socially dynamic research field to conduct socio-cultural
ethnographic observations on collaboration, design and innovation. The semiotic framework is
important to explore the ways in which social cues on the meaning potentials of virtual places and
artifacts are co-produced by design. The multimodal perspective to the social semiotic framework
provides a systemic model to analyze the experiential, interpersonal and textual potentials, and
uncovers the ways in which the co-designers embedded affordances and constraints for the visiting
users. The methodological combination of multimodal analysis and MDA provides a coherent
framing for the study of co-design activities as socially contextualized semiotic practices.
Investigating the potentials and limitations of SL in this context could inspire new methodological
experimentations and proliferation of new understandings in virtual research methods about userdriven
design practices and digital communication.
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