Title: 5 Reasons Why Metaphors Can Improve the User Experience
Context: User experience metaphors are…um…dammit! Why can’t I ever come up with a good metaphor when I need one?
Synopsis: You use metaphors everyday to make sense of the world around you. Yes you. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the tools you interact with on a daily basis: computers, ATMs, cars, maps, phones, software…I could go on and on and each and every one is a collection of metaphors that allow you to achieve desirable outcomes – often through incredibly complex processes – that have been delivered through the universal familiarity of metaphors. If everything we had to do in our life had to be explicitly compartmentalized we would need to remember so many isolated bits of information that our brains would explode. Consistency of metaphorical models across environments (something like a keypad for entering numbers or the use of familiar iconography) allows us to reuse conceptual paradigms over and over which reduces our aggregate cognitive load and allows us to accomplish things easier, faster and with less confusion. So use metaphors as much as you can to help your users not only understand your design but also to prompt them into action. After all, metaphors are the the best thing since sliced bread.
Best Bit: “Our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, which means that we use metaphors to reason and understand the world.”
via sixrevisions.com
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