Algebraic semiotics was developed by Joseph Goguen. His website gives a comprehensive overview of work in the area.
Slides from a talk given at Goldsmiths College, December 2005,
are available here.
The talk was on using Algebraic Semiotics to design and evaluate
animations of algorithms, and was illustrated with an animation
of insertion sort.
An applet of the animation appears below, but before you click the
"Run" button, note that the graphics flashes horribly
(technical stuff: a separate thread needs to be introduced for
the animation, which will also allow step-by-step animation,
and double buffering needs to be implemented to stop that horrible
flashing and flickering).
An earlier paper on algebraic semiotics and user interfaces: Grant Malcolm and Joseph A. Goguen. Signs and representations: semiotics for user interface design. In Ray Paton and Irene Neilson (eds), Visual Representaions and Interpretations, Springer Workshops in Computing, Springer 1998.
Back to my home page.