Metaphor draws from the familiar to introduce something new. It enable the audience to grasp a new idea using an existing grip.
Imetaphroman
One day, my fellow designer, Greg Bosque, referred to me as metaphorman. I stopped unsure for minute whether it was a compliment, but his grin told me it was. He was right of course. It’s true that I tend to express my ideas using metaphors, usually created spontaneously in a moment of need.
Doing the work of design is frequently filled with moments because our task is often about putting a recognizable face on abstract information. We deal constantly in complex and often intrinsically difficult to understand clusters of information that are hard to explain. The right metaphor can frame it up instantly with a certain spin of perspective that helps the entire conversation and therefore the endeavor move forward,
So, yes, I am metaphorman. This little character I call “iMetaphorman” is my avatar, He is himself, a metaphor of sorts, a proxy, helping me with presentations, He is my straight man.
What is a Metaphor?
It is the nature of a metaphor to challenge the audience’s notion of reality. it is up to the audience to conclude whether it is indeed a metaphor or a matter of fact statement of what is. That’s how it works. It’s what makes metaphor different from simile or other forms of analogy. It doesn’t announce itself.
Metaphor by nature employs deliberate ambiguity as to whether it is in fact a metaphor. It is left up to the audience to discern its presence and meaning. This question of whether a given thing is a metaphor or a statement of what is what has been the cause of many great theological and philosophical debates through the ages.
The same is true of metaphor in UX design. Whether something on your phone that looks like a book or a clock or a lock actually is those things or is a metaphorical reference to them, you get to decide. The blurring of identity between real and virtual things is precisely the point.
What is metaphor for in ux design?
Metaphor in digital technology is an super effective means to convey new abstract ideas wrapped in familiar concrete imagery. Metaphor has played a hugely important role in the adoption of digital technology. While we attribute widespread adoption of computer devices and apps to the advent of the graphical user interface, it was metaphor embodied in the graphics that was really responsible for the heavy lifting.
What is the cloud?
The cloud is a metaphor used to describe the nebulous ambiguity of data stored elsewhere. The fact is the data could be almost anywhere. It doesn’t really matter where. It is likely in some data center somewhere, a server farm. There are emerging a few physical locations which are becoming server farm meccas.
Where is the cloud? Oh, you mean Quincy?
Near the shores of the Columbia River, just east of the Cascades, is a small farming town of Quincy Washington. Electricity is relatively inexpensive from the nearby hydroelectric dams. The local legacy of the fruit orchard industry means the skills and resources needed to build and maintain large concrete warehouses with AC / refrigeration are plentiful.
I have personal friends in the area. one is John Kulm, John is a postman and cowboy poet who grew up in the Quincy area and still operates the family farm much as his parents did. Now some of John’s neighboring farms are server farms. Many familiar brand names among them, such as Microsoft, Dell, Yahoo, Intuit, And somewhere in those furrows of refrigerators filled with data, I’m betting are John’s cowboy poems about life on the farm.
quincy quincy quincy
When I was the Principal UX designer at Intuit, the Quincy data center came up in our tech conversation frequently as it was where we hosted our cloud-based professional accounting app, Intuit Tax online, that was prior to the full move to AWS hosting.
So, consider when we say the cloud, we could mean a data warehouse in Quincy or possibly up the river near East Wenatchee, Washington. There happens to be some of the largest bitcoin mining operations in the world, Salcido which is also a bit controversial by the way. See the CNBC report.
There are countless similar places around the world. In fact, many people may be surprised to learn that anytime you click on a link to a web page, different parts of that web page may be loading from many places in the world simultaneously in seconds. Even the designers of the web site may not really know where it actually resides.
if the cloud is in quincy, then where is Quincy?
now, back to metaphors
Language
It is the natural progression of language that new ideas are introduced wrapped in the familiar.. From the parables of the Bible to the icons on your virtual desktop, this has been the pattern for effective introduction and adoption of new ideas,
new becomes the familiar
Eventually as those new ideas become established things themselves, the metaphor falls away like scaffolding (simile) and the ideas stand on their own. The original metaphor may remind a permanent part of the thing, though likely in some abbreviated minimal form.
When just a hint of that image instantly ignites in the mind of an audience a predictable identity or set of ideas, then we know an icon is born. And that is where Icons come from.
metaphor in culture
It’s no secret that great writings including the Bible are filled with metaphors, allegories, and other analogies, Spiritual concepts are conveyed in familiar terms using stories and props familiar to the listeners. Iconography based on such stories fills the walls of cathedrals to this day. Language itself from ancient hieroglyphics to non-phonetic modern Asian characters are mini metaphors representing ideas evolved from ancient pictures.
skeuomorphism to flat
skeuomorphism
When Apple introduced the iPhone, they drew heavily upon familiar images and concepts from real life to explain the features in the phone. Skeuomorphism is a funny word that was used to describe the early iPhone user interface as it used imagery that was highly pictorial in nature.
It was a great idea but arguably may have had a lifespan. It was a short term strategy that paid off. Yes it was predictable that eventually,, the concepts in the phone would become familiar enough that such metaphorical representation is not necessary. In fact, it can become burdensome.
Flat
Iconography is now simpler. Then, having established this new platform, Apple decided it was time to simplify. They went flat, really flat. Suddenly, skeuomorphism was sooooo last year. The flat craze was here. Everyone had to out-do everyone else in flatness. Of, course, i had to try to interpret flatness in 3d art. It was easy. And i found it a nice opportunity to explore layers and space..
Flat layers of metal closely resembles the way a designer sees the flat icons during the making in Photoshop or Illustrator.
skeuomorphism inverted?
Now, just for fun, What would happen if we took real objects and had them pretend to be phone icons?
The floppy disc and the save icon
Someone’s kid found an old floppy disk and remarked about how clever it was that this storage device resembled the save icon. Now, Save as a discrete action or icon is becoming scarce.
Was the floppy disc really floppy?
Yes and no. In case you are wondering, this object was not really floppy to touch, but the magnetic material inside of it was. There was a time when the whole thing was floppy and much larger, It was larger on the outside and smaller on the inside, if you know what i mean, unlike the Tardus. Might this actually be a Roger MacGuffen?
Digital photo of a piece of physical art depicting a digital Save icon which is based on the look of an actual 3.5 inch floppy drive that saved digital data to a physical disc.
Block chain - Get it?
What is Blockchain?
The name itself is an effective metaphor explaining the concept. The structure is a bit like a neural network, locked blocks connected together. The security is described as a zero trust concept, meaning that every connection is discretely secure. There are many purposes and implications.
Making art about blockchain is easy and hard. The imagery implied is already within the art that I make so making with this in mind is fairly automatic. The greater challenge is going beyond the obvious to explain or give an impression of its purpose without being overly didactic. Drawing from the metaphorical imagery, then taking it new places is interesting and inspiring to me.
I stood by while a block-chain expert engineer pointed to my art and explained to me where I had gone wrong in my diagram. The layout of this art piece didn’t quite match the data architecture of blockchain. I’m saying out-loud, “Oh, ,I see ” while inside I am saying “Yes!” I really had not expect this to be taken so literally, but am flattered that it was close rate enough that he could critique its accuracy.
crypto currency
Bitcoin is a metaphorical name as well. This is a vast topc. I’m saving it for later.
