Sutton originally created SignWriting in Denmark in the fall of 1974, at the request of professor Lars von der Lieth and others on his research team in the Audiology Research Group at the University of Copenhagen.^[10]

Sutton was asked to work on a research project, transcribing the gestures made by Danish hearing and Deaf people while they speak or sign. The project, part of a dissertation by Jan Enggaard Pedersen, showed that Danish Sign Language was a rich language, while the gestures of hearing people were unconnected with language.^[11]

Sutton's experience transcribing Danish sign language inspired her to work with Deaf people worldwide, helping them to write their own sign languages. She named the new writing system “SignWriting”.^[12]

SignWriting has since been used to write the sign languages of 40 countries.^[1] However, it is not clear how widespread its use is in each country.

Between 1986 and 1994 Sutton worked with a software developer to create "SignWriter", a word processor for SignWriting which runs on MS-DOS computers. SignWriter included an integrated sign dictionary, and support for multiple languages and countries.^[13]

In 1996, Antonio Carlos da Rocha Costa, a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), discovered SignWriter and introduced it to his colleagues, beginning Brazil's institutional use of SignWriting.^[14]

In 2001, at the annual meeting of Brazil's National Association of the Deaf (FENEIS), the association voted to accept SignWriting as the preferred method of transcribing Brazilian Sign Language into a written form. The association strongly recommended to the Brazilian government that SignWriting be taught in all Deaf schools.

In 2003, SignWriting was used in a Brazilian Sign Language dictionary containing more than 9,500 signs, which was published by the University of São Paulo.^[15]

SignWriting is used in 18 Federal Universities and 12 public schools in Brazil.^[16] In Germany, it is taught to deaf adults to improve their ability to read and write spoken German.^[17] There is also a German website dedicated to SignWriting.^[18]

In SignWriting, a combination of iconic symbols for handshapes, orientation, body locations, facial expressions, contacts, and movement^[19][20] are used to represent words in signed languages. Since SignWriting, as a featural script,^[21] represents the actual physical formation of signs rather than their meaning, no phonemic or semantic analysis of a language is required to write it. A person who has learned the system can "feel out" an unfamiliar sign in the same way an English speaking person can "sound out" an unfamiliar word written in the Latin alphabet, without even needing to know what the sign means.

The number of symbols is extensive and often provides multiple ways to write a single sign. Just as it took many centuries for English spelling to become standardized, spelling in SignWriting is not yet standardized for any sign language.

Words may be written from the point of view of the signer or the viewer. However, almost all publications use the point of view of the signer, and assume the right hand is dominant. Sutton originally designed the script to be written horizontally (left-to-right), like English, and from the point of view of the observer, but later changed it to vertical (top-to-bottom) and from the point of view of the signer, to conform to the wishes of Deaf writers.

All SignWriting shows the perspective of the signer. For some hand shapes the orientation is unambiguous, but the color of the glyph always indicates hand orientation: Black indicates the back of the hand, white the palm. A hollow outline (white) glyph indicates that the palm faces the signer, and a filled (black) glyph indicates that the palm faces away from the signer. Split shading (half black, half white) indicates side views, with the order of the colors showing which side view is meant. Although in reality the wrist may turn to intermediate positions, only the four orientations are represented in SignWriting, as they are enough to represent signed languages.

If an unbroken glyph is used, then the hand is placed in the vertical (wall or face) plane in front of the signer, as occurs when finger spelling. A band erased across the glyph through the knuckles shows that the hand lies in the horizontal plane, parallel to the floor. (If one of the basic hand-shape glyphs is used, such as the simple square or circle, this band breaks it in two; however, if there are lines for fingers extended from the base, then they become detached from the base, but the base itself remains intact.)

The diagram to the left shows a BA-hand (flat hand) in six orientations. For the three vertical orientations on the left side, the hand is held in front of the signer, fingers pointing upward. All three glyphs can be rotated, like the hands of a clock, to show the fingers pointing at an angle, to the side, or downward. For the three horizontal orientations on the right side of the diagram, the hand is held outward, with the fingers pointing away from the signer, and presumably toward the viewer. They can also be rotated to show the fingers pointing to the side or toward the signer. Although an indefinite number of orientations can be represented this way, in practice only eight are used for each plane—that is, only multiples of 45° are found.

There are over a hundred glyphs for hand shapes, but all the ones used in ASL are based on five basic elements:

• A square represents a closed fist, with the knuckles of the flexed fingers bent 90° so that the fingers touch the palm and the thumb lies over the fingers. Unadorned, this square represents the S hand of fingerspelling. Modified as described below, it indicates that at least one of the four fingers touches the palm of the hand.
• A circle represents an "open fist", a hand where the thumb and fingers are flexed so as to touch at their tips. Unadorned, this is the O hand of fingerspelling. Modified, it indicates that at least one finger touches the thumb this way.
• A pentagon (triangle atop a rectangle), as in the illustration used for the Orientation section above, represents a flat hand, where all fingers are straight and in contact. This is similar to the B hand of fingerspelling, though without the thumb crossing over the palm.
• A 'C' shape represents a hand where the thumb and fingers are curved, but not enough to touch. This is used for the C hand of fingerspelling, and can be modified to show that the fingers are spread apart.
• An angled shape, like a fat L, shows that the four fingers are flat (straight and in contact), but bent at 90° from the plane of the palm. It does not occur as a simple shape, but must include an indication of where the thumb is, either out to the side or touching the tips of the fingers.

A line halfway across the square or pentagon shows the thumb across the palm. These are the E, B, and (with spread fingers) 4 hands of fingerspelling.

These basic shapes are modified with lines jutting from their faces and corners to represent fingers that are not positioned as described above. Straight lines represent straight fingers (these may be at an angle to indicate that they are not in line with the palm; if they point toward or away from the signer, they have a diamond shape at the tip); curved lines for curved (cupped) fingers; hooked lines for hooked fingers; right-angle lines, for fingers bent at only one joint; and crossed lines, for crossed fingers, as shown in the chart at right. The pentagon and C are only modified to show that the fingers are spread rather than in contact; the angle is only modified to show whether the thumb touches the finger tips or juts out to the side. Although there are some generalizations which can be made for the dozens of other glyphs, which are based on the circle and square, the details are somewhat idiosyncratic and each needs to be memorized.

For the top sign, the arrows show that the two '1' hands move in vertical circles, and that although they move at the same time (tie bar), the left hand (hollow arrowhead) starts away from the body (thin line) going up while the right hand (solid arrowhead) starts near the body (thick line) going down.

With the bottom sign, the right 'X' palm-down hand moves down-side-down relative to the stationary palm-up 'B' hand. This is overly exact: The ASL sign will work with any downward zigzag motion, and the direction and starting point of the circles is irrelevant.

There are only a few symbols for finger movement. They may be doubled to show that the movement is repeated.

A solid bullet represents flexing the middle joint of a finger or fingers, and a hollow bullet represents straightening a flexed finger. That is, a 'D' hand with a solid bullet means that it becomes an 'X' hand, while an 'X' hand with a hollow bullet means that it becomes a 'D' hand. If the fingers are already flexed, then a solid bullet shows that they squeeze. For example, a square (closed fist, 'S' hand) with double solid bullets is the sign for 'milk' (iconically squeezing an udder).

A downward-pointing chevron represents flexing at the knuckles, while an upward-pointing chevron (^) shows that the knuckles straighten. That is, a 'U' hand with a down chevron becomes an 'N' hand, while and 'N' hand with an up chevron becomes a 'U' hand.

A zigzag like two chevrons (^^) joined means that the fingers flex repeatedly and in sync. A double-line zigzag means that the fingers wriggle or flutter out of sync.

Hundreds of arrows of various sorts are used to indicate movement of the hands through space. Movement notation gets quite complex, and because it is more exact than it needs to be for any one sign language, different people may choose to write the same sign in different ways.

For movement with the left hand, the Δ-shaped arrowhead is hollow (white); for movement with the right hand, it is solid (black). When both hands move as one, an open (Λ-shaped) arrowhead is used.

As with orientation, movement arrows distinguish two planes: Movement in the vertical plane (up & down) is represented by arrows with double stems, as at the bottom of the diagram at left, while single-stemmed arrows represent movement parallel to the floor (to & fro). In addition, movement in a diagonal plane uses modified double-stemmed arrows: A cross bar on the stem indicates that the motion is away as well up or down, and a solid dot indicates approaching motion. To & fro movement that also goes over or under something uses modified single-stemmed arrows, with the part of the arrow representing near motion thicker than the rest. These are iconic, but conventionalized, and so need to be learned individually.

Straight movements are in one of eight directions for either plane, as in the eight principal directions of a compass. A long straight arrow indicates movement from the elbow, a short arrow with a cross bar behind it indicates motion from the wrist, and a simple short arrow indicates a small movement. (Doubled, in opposite directions, these can show nodding from the wrist.) A secondary curved arrow crossing the main arrow shows that the arm twists while it moves. (Doubled, in opposite directions, these can show shaking of the hand.) Arrows can turn, curve, zigzag, and loop-the-loop.

Arrows on the face at the eyes show the direction of gaze.

Six contact glyphs show hand contact with the location of the sign. That is, a handshape glyph located at the side of the face, together with a contact glyph, indicates that the hand touches the side of the face. The choice of the contact glyph indicates the manner of the contact:

• an asterisk (∗ or *) for simply touching the place;
• a plus sign (+) for grasping the place (usually the other hand);
• a pound/hash sign (#) for striking the place;
• a circle with a dot inside (⊙) for brushing along the place and then leaving it;
• a spiral (꩜ or may be approximated with @) for rubbing the place and not leaving; if there is no additional arrow, this is understood to be in circles; and
• two bars on either side of a contact symbol (|∗|) to indicate the contact happens between elements of the place of contact; usually between fingers, or inside a circular hand shape. (A contact other than the basic asterisk is rarely used between bars.)

If the signing hand is located at the other hand, the symbol for it is one of the hand shapes above. In practice, only a subset of the more simple hand shapes occurs.

Additional symbols are used to represent sign locations at the face or body parts other than the hands. A circle shows the head.

There are symbols to represent facial movements that are used in various sign languages, including eyes, eyebrows, nose movements, cheeks, mouth movements, and breathing changes. The direction of head movement and eyegaze can also be shown.

Shoulders are shown with a horizontal line. Small arrows can be added to show shoulder and torso movement. Arms and even legs can be added if necessary.

There are also symbols that indicate speed of movement, whether movement is simultaneous or alternating, and punctuation.

Various punctuation symbols exist that correspond to commas, periods, question and exclamation marks, and other punctuation symbols of other scripts. These are written between signs, and lines do not break between a sign and its following punctuation symbol.