Metaphors in Computing  Metaphors are the fundamental concepts, terms, and images by which and through which information is easily recognized, understood, and remembered.  Metaphors include essential means by which the choices for command/control are communicated and the status of all data and functions is depicted.  Metaphors are the KEY.

Key Words  Consumers  Culture  Diversity  Graphic Designs  Icons  Multimedia  Rhetoric  Symbols  User Interface  Visible Language

References for Metaphors  Desk: Drawers, files, folders, papers, paper clips, stick-on note sheets  Network,diagram, map: nodes, links, landmarks, regions, labels, base (background), legend, home  Locate: point, touch, encircle items  Delete: throw away, recycle, garbage can, goat

Desktop  The desktop metaphor was popularized by Xerox and then Apple.  Contains office references such as desktop, documents, folders, windows, trashcan, and recycle bins.  New metaphorical references and enrichments of the existing references are constantly occurring are made all the time.

Theories of Metaphors  Old View  Metaphor is a rhetoric ornament of speech.  Literal language is non-metaphoric.  Every metaphoric expression can be translated into a literal expression.

Theories of Metaphors Cont.  New View  Metaphors are an essential part of human cognition.  All language is originally metaphoric.  Some metaphoric expressions can not be translated into so called literal expressions ( because they are so rich; because the metaphoric “tension” is part of the meaning of the expression.)

Types of Metaphors  Explicit: a user interface design technique for presenting software in a way that takes advantage of the users previous domain knowledge (window, desktop, etc.).  Implicit:a tool for helping designers to understand users and their tasks, these metaphors are used in design processes but are not represented in the resulting user interface.

Goals of Metaphor Makers  In order to achieve success in making a metaphor applicable the creator must carefully plan, analyze, design, and implement user interface metaphors.  The goal is reached when the majority of users can comprehend use and remember the information they wish to obtain more quickly, with greater ease, and with deeper satisfaction.

Happy User

Problems with Metaphors  They must be concrete and obvious in order to be effective.  They must be appropriate to the task otherwise they mislead and confuse the user.  Some task do not have an appropriate metaphor resulting in an incomplete metaphor that can lead to the user taking it more seriously than intended.

In Conclusion  Metaphors are difficult to create, maintain, and in some ways use. Though they help many users navigate operating systems more easily there are some users still left in the dark. There are new metaphors that are in the making but implementing them into an operating system is extremely difficult due to the time it takes to manifest them. Another difficulty is the increasing amount of international users making it harder for designers to maintain user friendly applications.