The website at the time of its technical responsiveness: reflections on the Use of the text concept to websites

Abstract

Technical circumstances in which websites are used are today very diversified, as an effect of the growing success of mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) and of other technological and commercial factors. The same website can be visited using different browsers, different display resolutions and aspect ratios, mouse or touch screen, and so on. This new challenge has led web designers and software developers to explore and refine responsive or adaptive layout strategies. The result is a greater flexibility of websites, but – as for the semiotic analysis – a weaker stability of the text. This article aims to discuss some theoretical and methodological questions about the semiotic analysis of new generation websites.