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This work is based on the Semiotic Engineering theory of
Human-Computer Interaction. This theory views the
application interface as a meta-communication act, a
message from designer to user, representing the designers`
view of the artifact he developed. Since the designer
cannot be present in the interface, he is represented by
his deputy, who is endowed with a communicative capacity
that allows it to carry out a discourse that is complete
and exclusively regarding the designers` final conclusions
about the needs, preferences, capacities and
opportunities that he understands the user has. Being
impossible to predict all the interpretations that each
user can generate for the application, the designer needs,
through his deputy, to explain everything that he did (and
why he did it), and to give the users a chance to clarify
their doubts. The best alternative for metacommunication
is, certainly, the help system. In this way, the work herein
proposed extends the current theoretical model of Semiotic
Engineering, making explicit the presence of the help
system and its communicative role. The purpose of this
extension is to provide software designers with epistemic
tools to support them when constructing their application`s
help systems. These tools allow designers to explore help
systems` communicative power, supporting them in the
reflection about the materials available for its
elaboration (design models, design rationale, among
others), thus supporting them both in the construction of
the discourse embedded in the help system, and in the
elaboration of the possible ways the user will be able to
express himself within this discourse.
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