Tag Archives: metaphor

Metaphor and Design

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“Metaphor is for most people device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish–a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. For this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor. We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.” George Lakoff

As rational people who like to rationally talk about doing rational things, we like to think we choose products based on what we can see, hear, feel, taste and touch. Is this a good beer? We taste it. Is this a good car? We drive it. We like to believe that we make our judgments by distinguishing tangible distinctions. But is there’s a lot more to the equation than just our five senses. There is more to it than cataloging functional benefits. There are the subconscious elements, the deeper meanings, the other intangible benefits that products offer, which factor into the formula and influence our decisions.

The concepts that govern our thought are not just matters of the intellect. They have deeper meanings that intertwine the supposed rational with the symbolic. They govern our everyday functioning, from the expression of complex beliefs and concepts down to the most mundane details. These systems of meaning structure what we perceive, how we perceive it and how we act upon those perceptions.  They inform us how to get around in the world, how we relate to other people and even how to select objects of consumption. Our conceptual system thus plays the central role in defining our everyday realities. And we structure concepts in relation to each other.  Take the concept of argument as war: 

  • Your claims are indefensible.
  • He attacked every weak point in my argument.
  • I demolished his argument.
  • I’ve never won an argument with him.
  • You disagree? Okay, shoot!
  • If you use that strategy, he’ll wipe you out.
  • He shot down all of my arguments. 

We do this all the time – time is money, data is geology, clothing is theater.  Consequently, understanding associations between concepts is pivotal to turning insights into action, whether you are designing an object or a strategy.

Pure metaphor.

Sometimes, when luck is with you, you can just show us something that isn’t your product at all and tell us it is. This is the use of  pure metaphor: something that stands in for your product that helps clarify and convince. This is obviously a good idea when your product is intangible, but also when the product is, frankly, dull, complicated or has no contextual frame of reference.

I once saw a poster in a library. In it, a hiker was pausing on a beautiful vista overlooking the Grand Canyon, the awesome spectacle looming before him. The poster could have been advertising Timberland or Arizona tourism or even cigarettes, but headline instead read, “Knowledge is free. Visit your library.” Visually, the message was the perfect use of metaphor. A library visit is like an odyssey through immense, spectacular country; it goes beyond the things housed there speaks to the underlying sense of discovery, exploration and surprise.

Fused metaphor.

Unfortunately, pure metaphors are rare, the reason being that it’s simply easier to create a fused metaphor. With a fused metaphor, you take the product (or something associated with it, the way a toothbrush is associated with toothpaste) and attach, or fuse it, with something else.

Objects, at least from a design or advertising perspective, that are modified in some way are often more engaging to us. We are, after all, naturally curious creatures. Unmodified images are often just clichés or stale representations. Disrupting the symbolic structure and associated metaphor primes the viewer’s psyche, drawing them into product or message to make sense of what’s going on. For example, one of advertiser David Ogilvy’s famous ideas was “The Man in the Hathaway Shirt,” who wore an eye patch and was thereby more interesting than a man who didn’t. He wasn’t just the your typical handsome man, he was a wounded, brave, paragon of masculinity with a story to tell.

Unlike pure metaphor, fused images help contextualize the selling argument for us. we don’t have to leap quite as far when part of what we’re looking at is what’s for sale.

So what? At its most basic level, design is about people rather than the objects and spaces we construct.  Design facilitates interaction between people and brands, mediated by the products and spaces those brands construct. We think in terms of solving problems (addressing functional needs, increasing efficiencies, etc.), but problems aren’t unchanging.  They are fluid and influenced by a host of factors, from basic function to notions of status to whether or not they make sense in relation to our worldview.  Because genuinely innovative, new ideas are almost always the product of juxtaposition, they can be nearly impossible to quantify in terms of risk or acceptance. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to reduce risks.  

Why? Because metaphors endow products and spaces with human-like characteristics, making them more approachable and usable. They couch them in concepts with which we are already familiar and make the process of acceptance easier. They also make conversion from insight to object, space or message easier in the same way, by grounding them in concepts people understand, they can more readily see differences and similarities.  They can more easily envision what materials, words, colors, etc. will resonate and can start to readily think in new directions.

Doing so simply requires using a different set of tools than those typically used to test peoples’ reactions.  This is when the use of metaphor in the design process becomes most important. Metaphor provides us with the means to understand complex spaces, things and relationships. Like the example of “argument is war,” imagine applying the same model to designing a product.  Food as spirituality, for example: 

  • This dish is heavenly.
  • This ice cream is divine.
  • Bacon is good for the soul. 

Ask yourself these questions:


1. What is this product? What does it do? The logotype for Exhale, a pulmonary disease therapy company, demonstrates visually what they do best: they help us breathe better. Each subsequent letter in the logo is less heavy and lighter in color than the previous. As we read the name, we realize and understand its meaning through this visual metaphor.

2. How does it differ from the competition? One of Herman Miller’s annual reports used transparent paper stock to suggest the serendipity of innovation: You look at one problem and sometimes see through it, the answer to another.

3. What’s the largest claim you can make for the product? That it’s a dog shampoo that dogs actually love? Then put the shampoo in packaging designed like something else they love: a fire hydrant.

4. What is this product’s central purpose? One annual report for the Calgary YWCA emphasized the organization’s work with battered women, so the report itself was torn and distressed. The headline on the beat-up cover: “Last year over 11,000 Calgary women were treated worse than this book.” This metaphor may even be stronger than if they had used actual photographs of battered women, since this approach is less expected. 

Once the metaphor is defined (and there will no doubt be more than one metaphor in the mix in many cases), other associations will start to emerge.  If associations are made between food and spirituality, for example, what does that mean for color palette choices, brand elements, package design, etc.?  That leads to defining not only the functional aspects of the design, but the story behind it.

And design, particularly when thinking about design of something that is new or takes an existing brand in a totally new direction, is akin to creating a story.  There are tensions, themes, characters, frames, etc.  Conflicts, tensions and interactions become connectors between ideas and actions. And like the elements or any story (or the type of story), metaphor allows you to categorize, structure and create boundaries with the information you work with.  The final result is a strategy for design that makes sense to the consumer.

Stories, Invention and the Bottom Line

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The power of a good story, or even a rather mundane one, is truly phenomenal.  In it are wrapped up the hopes, dreams, symbols, and significances that shed light on who we are as individuals and as members of a culture.  But the real power comes not from the explicit statements that emerge during, say, interviews, but from the subtext and patterns of meaning people assign to objects, relationships, and thoughts as they are created by participants through narrative. Not everything can be expressed as matter-of-fact discourse, especially things one cannot really put one’s finger on, or things that do not exist yet. Some of them are central to human experience, such as falling in love or admiring the full moon rising over the sea. If we want to explore this kind of experience, we need means and methods that are suited to communicate it.

I kept thinking about this problem, and one day I decided to see what happens if I explicitly ask research participants to write stories, pieces of fiction, about a topic related to my client’s needs.  Specifically, they were asked to write a story from the perspective of someone shopping for beer.  Much to my surprise, I ended up a wide range of ideas being expressed and a degree of complex language that was poetic, mundane, funny, sad and utterly fascinating.

I have used this method of gathering insights ever since, when I want to learn about things that are beside the topic but nonetheless worth exploring. It is by no means a replacement to fieldwork, but it is another tool that can be used to tease out how people construct their world in ways they may not normally be able to express. These things concern the creative aspects of the cultural context of how meaning is constructed.

Why are stories important for interaction and knowledge? Traditional cultures are storytelling cultures in the literal sense: people tell each other stories. We have often set this fact aside in the post-modern, linear, data driven world of business, but it is still fundamental to who we are.  People do not buy products based on specs alone, they buy based on deeper issues that connect products and places to their humanity. At certain occasions the stories gain a special role, such as at a child’s bedtime or while sitting around the kitchen table (the primal campfire). Stories make it possible for us to share our world, not lists of product attributes. We actively participate in the creation of culture by listening to stories and telling them—and we learn about culture through stories. It is in the context of understanding stories that we uncover triggers and meanings that simply don’t emerge fro surveys and interviews. They supply us with metaphors and meanings that are hidden from view when people are in the participant mode. Stories give them license to explore ideas and create symbols that tap the deepest recesses of a product’s or brand’s subtler meanings.

Stories are aimed at exploring the subjective, but not the individual. They are the collective myth. The point with composing a story is to find a collective level in the invention. It is a kind of inter-subjective reality. Creative solutions and innovative ideas arrive when imagination is actively used by participants, not just the people working for the company in need of answers.

Symbolism of Color and Web Design

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When thinking about how the study of symbols and signs can factor into interface design (whether for the traditional web or a mobile environment) two questions come to mind.  First, up to which level of a semiotic sign – iconic, index, and symbolic sign – should symbolic meaning be dealt with in eBranding?  Second, how are aspects of color and texture as a semiotic signs related to the purposes of 1) increased brand awareness, 2) enhanced brand loyalty, and 3) cause to purchase/commit?

I’m characterizing the different modes of reference of color application through Pierce’s model distinguishing iconic, index and symbolic signs.  Especially iconic and indexical signs seem to structure representation in a new way from the design. The sign may refer as an icon, an index, or a symbol to its object (X). Color may represent icon index, and symbol by the viewer’s interpretation. So, color of the webpage may function as an iconic sign when it refers to another thing with a similar color or texture.  Tan may, for example, refer to limestone even though there is no real limestone imagery used.

An indexical unit draws attention by being existent and not similar as does the iconic item. The cultural and social background of the person interpreting the site’s images and colors the third level of “symbol”.  This means symbols are more subject to variation in response and reaction than icons, icons more so than indexes. Returning to the use of tan, it may reflect a sense of the exotic by tying it to underlying associations with the desert and the Western construction of mythical representations of the Middle East. The point is that color is more than we think and can be remarkably powerful in helping establish connections with the user. It is a symbol and symbols have tremendous value.

Signs do not function separately, but form multilayered references.  The complexity of a sign is increased because the references are not stable or fixed qualities of the product.  Since references of the sign can be interpreted differently at different times and contexts, it means they display greater variability when not grounded in iconic and indexical messages.

So how do we use this when developing a site? Execution means integration, resemblance, and metaphor:

  • Colors can integrate, that is they create a visual unity of the elements shown.
  • Color can make objects and scenes resemble very closely what they look like in reality.
  • Through symbolic metaphors, colors, images, and textures address themselves to the imaginary and imply comparisons.  Identity is transferred from one object to another (i.e. website to prospective consumer).

Doing Rapid Ethnography

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The hallmark of ethnographic research is field work done in natural settings, where it can yield a broad picture and provide a more complete context of activity. But, ethnography can, at times, scare our clients.  Because of this depth, it is often seen as slow, expensive and inclined to produce more information than can easily be translated into action.  And to be fair, that assessment can be true.  However, an ethnographic approach need not always be so.

Due to budget constraints and time demands, a “ rapid” approach to ethnography can be both more practical and still yield findings and insights that can produce highly actionable results.  Is it always appropriate? No, but it is often better than no research and may actually be more beneficial depending on the goals of the research. In a rapid ethnography model, researchers can lessen time demands taking short focused studies to rapidly gain understanding of the brand, the product and the actions/meanings surrounding them. The trick is remembering design the processes around tighter focus, interactivity with participants and collaborative data analysis, not only with the researchers but members of the client team.

First, focus can be more difficult to achieve than we think.  A central tenet of good ethnography is that you don’t go into the field with your answers running – you’re goal is to learn about context and then determine how a product fits into the system.  So focusing too early can mean loading the front end of a project with too many preconceived notions. So focus in the sense we’re talking about here means having research teams identify the general area of interest and identifying specific questions that need to be answered by the fieldwork.  This means identifying the “why” behind the questions rather than simply recreating a context-based survey.

This means developing both a concise field guide (things to look for) and a field book (consistent, shared mode of documentation) before the fieldwork begins that are specific enough to target and isolate key behaviors and activities, but open enough to let the participant serve as the guide.  Constructing the field guide and field book in this way will help direct what research teams attend to during the data collection process and how they frame the field analysis. This is also a good place to consider using liminal members of a group and/or outliers. Because they are on the periphery of the subject in question, they often have ken insights on what others are doing and why they’re doing it.  Sometimes the best insights come from those least inclined to interact with a product or brand.

Another consideration in conducting a successful rapid ethnography is for researchers to use multiple techniques to increase the likelihood of discovering new concepts, interesting behavior, etc.  As an example, using art work or writing in the process can yield symbolic associations that wouldn’t necessarily come out immediately in the context of traditional ethnography.  Asking people to create and construct changes the nature of the inquiry and produces results that can then be compared against both the interview and the observations.  It is another way of quickly triangulating data. Other techniques might include resource flow documentation, defining activity valleys and peaks, or using cross-participant interviews (participants interview each other).

The third point to stress is using collaborative analytical methods.  Computer assisted analysis is always an option, but requires added expense and can be time consuming to learn  However, there are alternatives to ATLASti and other such tools.  Simply having a secure networking site where field notes, insights and observations can be shared between team members at the end of the day is extremely helpful.  Of course, the risk is that people might start jumping to conclusions too soon, but that can be mitigated through dialog. The point is that this allows researchers to collaboratively understand the ever-expanding field data and modify or refine the research in real time.  Another technique is to use metaphor and concept mapping in a shared system to help researchers align the underlying meanings of what they’re finding in the field rather than waiting until the end of the fieldwork to tease out insights. The creative side, insights-driven side of the research is essentially done in tandem with the fieldwork.

Is rapid ethnography always an ideal approach?  Certainly not. But it is a useful tool when budgets and time are limited.  And increasingly, it is simply part of the tool kit we have.

Metaphor as a Design Tool

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“Metaphor is for most people device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish–a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. For this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor. We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.” George Lakoff

The concepts that govern our thought are not just matters of the intellect. They have deeper meanings that intertwine the supposed rational with the symbolic. They govern our everyday functioning, from the expression of complex beliefs and concepts down to the most mundane details. These systems of meaning structure what we perceive, how we perceive it and how we act upon those perceptions.  They inform us how to get around in the world, how we relate to other people and even how to select objects of consumption. Our conceptual system thus plays the central role in defining our everyday realities. And we structure concepts in relation to each other.  Take the concept of argument as war:

  • Your claims are indefensible.
  • He attacked every weak point in my argument.
  • I demolished his argument.
  • I’ve never won an argument with him.
  • You disagree? Okay, shoot!
  • If you use that strategy, he’ll wipe you out.
  • He shot down all of my arguments.

We do this all the time – time is money, data is geology, clothing is theater.  Consequently, understanding associations between concepts is pivotal to turning insights into action, whether you are designing an object or a strategy.

At its most basic level, design is about people rather than the objects and spaces we construct.  Design facilitates interaction between people and brands, mediated by the products and spaces those brands construct. We think in terms of solving problems (addressing functional needs, increasing efficiencies, etc.), but problems aren’t unchanging.  They are fluid and influenced by a host of factors, from basic function to notions of status to whether or not they make sense in relation to our worldview.  Because genuinely innovative, new ideas are almost always the product of juxtaposition, they can be nearly impossible to quantify in terms of risk or acceptance. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to reduce risks.

Why? Because metaphors endow products and spaces with human-like characteristics, making them more approachable and usable. They couch them in concepts with which we are already familiar and make the process of acceptance easier. They also make conversion from insight to object, space or message easier in the same way, by grounding them in concepts people understand, they can more readily see differences and similarities.  They can more easily envision what materials, words, colors, etc. will resonate and can start to readily think in new directions.

Doing so simply requires using a different set of tools than those typically used to test peoples’ reactions.  This is when the use of metaphor in the design process becomes most important. Metaphor provides us with the means to understand complex spaces, things and relationships. Like the example of “argument is war,” imagine applying the same model to designing a product.  Food as spirituality, for example:

  • This dish is heavenly.
  • This ice cream is divine.
  • Bacon is good for the soul.

Once the metaphor is defined (and there will no doubt be more than one metaphor in the mix in many cases), other associations will start to emerge.  If associations are made between food and spirituality, for example, what does that mean for color palette choices, brand elements, package design, etc.?  That leads to defining not only the functional aspects of the design, but the story behind it.

And design, particularly when thinking about design of something that is new or takes an existing brand in a totally new direction, is akin to creating a story.  There are tensions, themes, characters, frames, etc.  Conflicts, tensions and interactions become connectors between ideas and actions. And like the elements or any story (or the type of story), metaphor allows you to categorize, structure and create boundaries with the information you work with.  The final result is a strategy for design that makes sense to the consumer.

Metaphor and Design Ideation

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Psychologists have been big believers in using metaphors in therapy. Beginning with Freud and Jung, they were interested in dreams because they believed dreams could serve as metaphors for issues that people were trying to work out in their waking lives. And over time psychotherapists, from the fathers of the movement to today, have often  believed that if they could introduce the right metaphor at the right time in therapy, they had a chance of helping someone see their problems more clearly, and perhaps enable them to engage in positive change.

Metaphors are powerful tools outside of therapy, of course.  From semiotics to language acquisition to design, metaphors define much of how we come to interpret the world and envision new ideas and things. Often there is nothing that can make a concept more persuasive or tangible than the use of an image that sticks in someone’s mind. An image may be memorable based on its concreteness or whimsicality or universality or perhaps its graphic nature; what makes a metaphorical image persuasive is its aptness to the situation one is attempting to understand.  It doesn’t mean anything, however, unless you can somehow analogize the illustration to some real situation. In other words, saying “it’s a metaphor” doesn’t mean anything unless you can answer the question, “what is it a metaphor for?”

I try to bring metaphors into presentations or ideation sessions whenever I can.  People may not be able to appreciate or understand how to build on an observation or insight unless they can visualize an analogous situation. Rather than focusing on solving problems or addressing “needs” right away, providing rich metaphors often assists people in viewing the insights in which their personal feelings are so entangled more objectively or more truthfully.  It allows people to step outside their daily roles and think creatively. The challenge is to design metaphors that are both memorable and apt to each party’s situation.  But that is also the opportunity for creativity on the mediator’s part, and for me, part of the fun of doing this kind of work.

Create a shared view of the present and the future. 
One element is to design a meeting tool to help quickly capture images and adjectives that people have in mind when asking what people are doing today, both inside the organization and the customers engaged with the brand, versus what they will do tomorrow. For example, you might pose questions such as: Imagine the research finding as a color, what would it be today? How does this compare to how people what it will be six months from now? It sounds silly, to be sure, but it gets people thinking about the situation in terms other than fulfilling immediate needs or focusing too quickly on details that may not be relevant to the bigger picture. It also gives people license to exercise their minds and start thinking in genuinely new and innovative ways.

Moving in the same direction. 
Pick one that’s appropriate for the design or strategy team and its journey, such as shopping for groceries for a party or preparing for a trip. Consider locations and cultures of team members as you choose the best metaphor. Find relevant photos or other images to post during the conversation to evoke the same sense of place for everyone. Get team members talking about what each must do to prepare for this adventure together, what help they need from others, the inherent risks and how to mitigate, etc. Capture responses as part of the meeting output, either online off to the side. “Translate” these responses into real- life implications for your team.

Painting pictures from the first-person perspective.
Encourage team members to use highly descriptive language. For example, you might ask: “Imagine you are a typical customer (or user) making a shopping list. How are you feeling as you walk through the steps? Why?” By painting a vivid picture, with each team member imagining s/he is the focal point, you’ll cull out more vivid and authentic responses far more quickly than if you asked: “Describe the typical customer experience.”  In other words, it forces the participants to think in the role of the person for whom they are designing, not in the professional role with all its baggage.

Choose images carefully. 
When you’re working with team members who have different  professional languages and concerns, using visual communications is more efficient and effective than using words alone. Tread carefully, however. Make sure that the use of a particular image, whether literal or proverbial, is appropriate and understandable for all team members.

Metaphor as a Design Tool Also Works For Business Development

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Retrieving concepts from metaphors demands creative thinking.  Contemporary theories have defined metaphors as a structuring of our cognitive system.  Metaphors are a way of equating signifier and signified into a new symbols, or at least making parallels between a symbolic construct and something completely new. In other words, metaphors affect the way we perceive the world, categorize experiences, and organize our thoughts. Metaphors not only guide reasoning but also enhance innovative thinking. They allow the marketer, the designer, or the business developer to think unconventionally and encourage the application of novel ideas to problems.

When used to pin down abstract concepts or unusual details, the use of metaphor bridges a major gap of understanding. The use of metaphors helps structure the mind to identify and define similarities and differences, break away from binary thinking and start to examine to problem from the standpoint of a system (as opposed to a series of elements within a system). It is also helpful for explaining strategic decisions back to a client. Few client-provided specifications are all-inclusive, and you can expect questions when your judgment calls don’t match what they imagined. If you explain that you designed your strategy “like Company X,” you can more readily summarize a wide range of choices and elements of the strategic plan, as well as gain added authority by showing that your choices mirror those of a successful strategy.

In design, metaphors are viewed as heuristics that help organize design thinking and tackle ill-defined design problems. Metaphorical reasoning is an iterative process through which designers gradually increase their knowledge of a design situation. Basically, the use of metaphors aids in structuring problems.  The same process can be applied to marketing and business development.  We frequently take observations at face value, focusing on the product or service to such a degree that we can’t open ourselves to new possibilities.

Why does that matter?  Because “innovation” has largely become a buzz word and doesn’t necessarily equate with creative thinking. The result is incremental thinking that is limited by conceptual walls we struggle to break through.  Creative thinking enables one to perceive a problem from unorthodox and innovative perspectives.  Creativity is a captivating and stimulating aspect of human thinking. It has been defined as the ability to restructure old ideas to produce singular inventions and to apply original thinking. It is the capacity to look critically at reality, explore unconventional alternatives, and perceive situations from unexpected perspectives. That leads to real opportunities.

 

 

 

The Importance of Metaphor

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Each of us is a skillful master of metaphors, as both linguists and primatologist have pointed out.  From an early age, indeed from birth, we possess an innate ability to recognize phonological and semantic patterns.  We construct utterances, phrases, to describe one thing in terms of another. Metaphor is essentially hardwired into our little brains.  These metaphors tend to emerge first during pretend play or parent/child interactions, when children produce simple noun-noun substitutions. I recall my oldest daughter calling a paring knife an “apple shaver” as a small child because of the associations with food and my then practice of shaving (which I have largely put aside).  My younger daughter referred to the minivan we had at the time as the “driver house.”  The point is that metaphor is a large part of how we make sense of the world and SYMBOLS drive the better part of how we construct and interpret reality.

A key part of human learning processes is what is referred to as “cognitive embodiment.” We use our bodies to develop more complex or abstract  concepts. For example, when we fall and struggle to stand up as toddlers, we learn about the principle of “balance.” This in turn informs our understanding of “balance” in many other spheres of life – “balance” becomes a metaphor for other facets of existence beyond the physical struggle against gravity.

The tendency has been to trumpet the features and product benefits of the things manufacturers and retailers sell, but that model is rapidly dying.  Marketers are only now realizing how important an understanding of metaphoric experience processes in the consumer’s mind is (vis-à-vis a brand, a product, a need, etc), in order to then provide brand positioning and creative communication with genuine meaning that impacts consumer thought and behavior. To every advertiser, designer and marketer, metaphor is the fundamental thread that weaves through and across our conscious and subconscious minds.  Metaphor creates a new reality.