Don et al,
There's a lot packed into this one. I can't see a short response, so I
won't go off the deep end till I'm comfortable with what I'm thinking.
In the meantime, thanks for the stimulating post!
Cheers.
Fil
On 4 April 2010 15:53, Don Norman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I, too, find the discussion on metaphor rich and compelling, but I
> wish to go beyond. If you will, I want to do what good designers are
> supposed to do and get at the root cause. So away with metaphor. let
> us go deeper.
>
> This discussion has tossed about many concepts, but the one that got
> me thinking was "affordance," I word with which I have a passing
> acquaintance and which I now somewhat disown. "Away," I say to
> affordance, "you have done as much harm as good. You never listened to
> me when you were young and now it is too late to reform." , For most
> uses in design, I have launched upon a campaign to replace with the
> word "signifier. But that is a different story for a different time.)
>
> I realized the affordance/signifier were in a completely different
> category than metaphor, and this illuminated the issue. An affordance,
> or if you will, a signifier, is a design tool. There are many such
> tools. Interactive designers have signifiers, visibility, feedback,
> causal chain, mapping, etc. Other areas of design have their own
> tools, guides, and laws. But none of these are in the same category
> as a metaphor: A metaphor illuminates. It ties different things
> together. It provides structure. Aha! This is not about metaphors: it
> is about the need for structure.
>
> Why do some wish to use metaphors? It is, I believe, because the
> appropriate metaphor gives a theme and consistency, form and
> structure, and coherence and understanding to the final design.
>
> So let us think about this: let me use the word Structure to capture
> all of that.
>
> I have long argued that what makes a design powerful, beautiful,
> understandable, and usable is a good conceptual model, so that people
> can understand where everything fits together and what everything's
> role is.
>
> But that is also what a good metaphor is meant to do.
>
> Or stories: Stories establish a theme. Stories are much more
> appropriate for services -- for interactive design -- because they
> capture the time course of the interaction.
>
> But whatever you call it: metaphor, story, schema, theme, structure,
> conceptual model: all are intended to do the same thing: to establish
> coherence and understanding.
> =====
>
> That is the first order analysis.
>
> Second-order analyses do show that all of these different approaches
> are somewhat different. I, myself, am not a fan of metaphor because i
> find it too restrictive. No modern, complex system is captured
> properly by a single metaphor. Worse, there are always things that
> don't apply, and therefore a sense of confusion. (An atom with its
> electrons spinning about (classical view) is like the sun and the
> planets. Except that an atom is not hot. How is the young student
> supposed to know that? The "desktop" metaphor is especially strained.
> Nothing on the desktop anymore is like a real desktop. (The desktop
> metaphor was strained on day one.)
>
> Metaphors are useful in getting started, perhaps, but once started, i
> urge dropping them: they are too restraining. They are always false
> (that is why they are called "metaphors" rather than "reality"). BUT,
> you must replace them with compelling, cohesive structures.
>
> Of course, as Lakoff and his multiple collaborators have argued, all
> language is metaphoric. Moreover, one can metaphorically interpret
> anything. That is, you can't escape it. It's the way the mind works.
>
> Cheers.
>
> Don
>
--
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/
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