Dear Jonas,
Thank you for your message. Yes you are right, I'm being deliberately
specific about how the use of metaphor is theorised about in design. It's an
attempt to avoid contributing to the confused and badly thought through
theory associated with much of design literature over the last 50 years.
The following are ideas I've developed since the 90s. I claim authorship.
Please reference them to me if you use them. If you know of others who have
put forward the same ideas it would be great to know!
1. A four-fold taxonomy of influences on how designers and users are
involved in design and the creation and use of designs is:
a) Logic: influences that involve rational relationships, understandings
and explanations both explicit and implicit to the design process, designed
outcome and interpretations and reflections by designers and users
b) Casuistic: influences that explicitly or implicitly understandings of
the design process, designed outcome and interpretations and reflections by
designers and users by referencing privileged ideas, objects, sources,
texts, persons etc
c) Deictic: influences that are simple direct and explicit and require no
interpretation or translation
d) Rhetoric: influences typically intended to persuade that a situation is
other than would be inferred solely in terms of logic, casuistic or deictic
interpretation. Metaphor is part of this category
2. There are four main ways metaphor is involved in design activity:
a) 'In the design process as a tool' in which the design team deliberately
creates metaphoric alternatives during the design process to raise an
increased number of potential solution ideas. Examples include imagining a
tube containing blood as a tube of toothpaste (metaphor) and this leads to
the idea of a peristaltic pump to move blood as an artificial heart, or
thinking of fluid as if it were champagne and this leads to the idea of
bubble pumps.
b) 'In the mind of the designer' - much the same as a) with the addition
that you can look at some affective neuro-cognitive tricks that will
increase idea generation in the subconscious of an individual.
c) Intentional use of metaphor 'in the designed outcome itself' to evoke
conscious and subconscious thoughts and emotions and activity motivators.
d) Independently of designers intended metaphors, by the user or potential
user in attempting to more efficiently understand a complex phenomena such
as an interface.
Of these, the combination of 1d/2c is most typical of discussions about the
use of metaphor in design. From observation, it is the primary method only,
however, in a relatively small proportion of designers, mainly in graphic
design, advertising and branding. Although found in UX , my observation,
your mileage may differ, is that it is a relatively small part of the design
activity.
At this stage, I'm suspecting that the prevalence of metaphor in design
education is more to do with historic background of school and college
education of Art and Design staff. The way metaphor is taught in design
unusually tightly echoes its use in English language studies. Added to this,
there is a self reinforcing effect of a training in metaphor, that
everything is metaphorically seen as a metaphor. This is a problem in all
areas of design. Most of the time, however, however a cigar is just a cigar
(deictic) says Freud (casuistic) or can be inferred from its construction,
material and use (logic).
Best regards,
Terry
===
Dr. Terence Love, PhD, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI
Love Design and Research
Tel/Fax: +61 (0)8 9305 7629
Mobile: +61 (0)434 975 848
[log in to unmask]
www.love.com.au
===
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jonas
Lundberg
Sent: Monday, 12 April 2010 1:57 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: On Metaphor
Dear Terence,
It seems that you are thinking of something fairly specific when you
talk about "metaphor as a specific tool", and 'metaphor as a main
design method'. Would you like to describe more in detail what you are
thinking about?
I think that there is much more to metaphor in design than specific
tools or methods, but I'd like to hear what you are thinking of to
avoid more misunderstandings....
Best regards
Jonas
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