HCI VISTAS, VOLUME-II, 2006-2007

  

Workshop on Application of Interface Metaphor in User Experience Design

Dr. Dinesh S. Katre

Report-April 2007

Report
Organized by Creative-i College as part of Pune Art & Design Festival
Date:Friday, 23 March 2007
Venue:S. M. Joshi Hall, Ganjave Chowk, Navi Peth, Pune
Duration:3:30 pm to 6:30 pm
 
Outline of Workshop:
Metaphors are part of our thinking, ideation, communication and learning processes. They are expressed and used in all the domains be it art, design, engineering and science. No wonder they are applied in user interface design and product conception. It all began with the advent of Graphical User Interface (GUI) used as part of the 8010 Star Information System designed by Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1981. Since then the interface metaphor is recognized as the powerful tool for cognitive mediation between the system and users. It significantly enhances the quality of user experience (UX). As computers are moving from professional tools to consumer products, learning about interface metaphor becomes essential for enhancement of usability and mass appeal.
 
The workshop covers following aspects of this popular topic-
Introduction, cognitive linguistics, appreciation of metaphors
The cognitive process, conceptual model, sensory design
The process of identification, selection, analysis, design
Criteria, aspects of qualitative evaluation
Cross-cultural usability issues
 
The festival also included workshops by international experts like Prof. Helmut Langer, Prof. Peter A. Di Sabatino, Ms. Elena Caratti & Ms. Annamaria Formentini, Nicola Morelli, Sayalee Joshi.
Participation
The workshop was attended by about 40 participants from companies like PureIT, Persistent Systems, Symantec, Mahendra Tech, HSBC, Infosys, C-DAC, Eithorn Solutions, Cybage Software, Convergys, Clarion Tech, Graphinet Solutions, Sarvasva Designs, 19AM Designs, Cropmarx Design; and educational organizations like Sinhagad College of Engineering, Symbiosis Institute of Design, Creative-I College, Bharat Institute of Engineering and Technology, etc. It included engineering students and some participants from Hyderabad too.
 
Understanding the business of metaphors requires
more of brains-on than hands-on efforts!
 Discussion
I have attempted to compile the important questions that came up during the discussion and provide answers with the best of my ability for the benefit of interested readers.
 
Q1. Is it true that the current trend is to design interfaces without interface metaphors?
This kind of approach may not be applicable to all types of application software. Metaphor or no metaphor depends on how complex the software is and who the user is. Interface metaphors will not have very prominent visibility in situations where the user is very conversant with the software tool, knows what it can do for him and how to use it. Basically, the requirement of cognitive mediation between system and user is not so alarming. If it is so we are mostly referring professional tools for professional users. One may underplay the interface metaphors by keeping them at conceptual level; one need not render them heavily. You invariably end up using them while conceptualizing the features, while describing the functionality or while organizing the modules. In my correspondence with Aaron Marcus, who is an international authority in this topic, he said that it is not really possible to have 'no metaphors' in human-human communication. I think he is right.
 
The world is populated by large number of people who do not know how to use computer or other electronic gadgets. Interface metaphor is the norm if the gap between known (user's existing knowledge, mental model) and unknown (new software) has to be bridged. They will surely need interface metaphors to get started. Documented help is never a substitute for usability.
 
Interface metaphor will always remain an important design tool for interface designers and product designers-
- to enhance usability of the product
- to impart familiar user experience
- to popularize the product
 
However, we must remember that effective usage of interface metaphor requires creativity and control.
 
Q2. Is interface metaphor design linked with User Centric Design (UCD) activity?
Of course! It is an important task during UCD activity to identify the mental models of users and address those mental models through interface metaphors. There is a special process for identification, selection, pre-facto analysis and evaluation of interface metaphors.
However, it must be remembered that we are not trying to sell metaphors as a solution to all interface design problems. The point is that whether you intend or not they are part of every human communication. It is important to notice them so that you can shape them, size them or eliminate them if required.
Metaphors are like bedbugs!
It is important to notice them if they are part of your bed.
Not knowing them or not understanding them is a matter of concern
or you sleep with them anyway :-)
 
Q3. Do interface metaphors get represented as icons only?
Interface metaphors or metaphors in our context of application, get represented in multiple ways not limiting to icons alone. They are reflected in product ideas, process design, functional behavior of the system (interaction design), features and their names, dialog design, overall user interface design, name of the product, etc. In short, all the aspects that constitute the user experience.

Q4. I am working on brail interface for blind users. What metaphors will work for the blind?
It is an amazing problem! Last week, on Zee Television, I saw a lot of blind participants greeting Mr. Amitabh Bachchan who was the guest for Antakshari show. Interestingly, most blind participants were saying that they were very happy to SEE Mr. Bachchan. Nobody said that they were happy to FEEL his presence. Some of them also mentioned about WATCHING his films. This has nothing to do with metaphors, but it shows that blind people are not modifying the standard figure of speech for accuracy of expression.
 
Anyway, it will be very interesting to study the metaphorical understanding of blind people. I suppose they wouldn't understand visual metaphors.
We need to study tactile metaphors based on
the perception of shapes and textures for the blind.
 
How to form the tactile mappings between the signifier (shape 1) and the signified (shape 2) to create a tactile metaphor? Will it be understandable to the blind users? Or the auditory metaphors? Or forget about user interface for a moment, we need to study how they apply their ability to metaphorize. Interested designers/ researchers may like to explore this challenging problem! Any takers? I am game for it already!
 
Q5. We don't experience or sense many linguistic metaphors though we use them quite often?
Say, do not waste my time or he is running on borrowed time, are metaphoric expressions. They originate from the root metaphor 'time is money'. But when we use these statements we never have the root metaphor in our mind. Most of us do not even know about it. The root metaphor is implied in the statement. It is a very familiar figure of speech and we apply it without much thinking / mental processing. Let me explain this by giving a metaphoric example.
 
It is like the cached WebPages. When you refresh, such WebPages are loaded pretty fast in the browser. Clear the history and reload the Webpages, it takes longer time as everything gets processed afresh, bit-by-bit. Similarly, we need to unlearn such overused and familiar metaphoric expressions to feel or notice the metaphor. In case of implied metaphors, as mentioned in the example, it is a subtle process. One has to take extra efforts to sharpen the metaphorical sense, especially in case of subtle linguistic metaphors. Let me mention my quote again- Understanding the business of metaphors requires more of brains-on than hands-on efforts!
 
Feedback
It was a great pleasure to get a chance to attend your seminar. I am a commercial artist and working as graphics designer in IT from last
6 years. I am interested in this usability area and attended some of good seminars and workshops.
The seminar was excellent and 100% helpful for designers... I will be interested in next seminars also..so plz do keep me on your list.
 
Yashodhara
 
I am writing to thank you for the Workshop you had on the interface metaphors. It was indeed a knowledge sharing experience and we came to know many things on the topics you shared with us. I and my team would like to attend such seminar in future.
 
Chetan More
Graphinet Solutions Pvt. Ltd, Pune
 
Workshop on metaphors was very helpful to me.
I got an idea of what are metaphors, some authors and books also you mentioned. 
I think I will start reading those topics as a starting point for my Ph.D.
 
Prof. Rajesh Kulkarni
HoD, Bharat Institute of Engineering and Technology, Hyderabad
 
How are you doing? My Name is Nasarullah I was present in your seminar @ pune "Metaphors of design" actually I belong to Hyderabad came pune for your seminar only ! Its was really great I liked it a lot and just now was reading about your "Cultural design & ethnography" its also having lots of juice in it.

Nasarullah Khan
Hyderabad
 
Acknowledgements
 
Many thanks to my dear friend Mr. Hridayesh Deshpande, Director, Creative-i College, Pune for organizing such event; all the organizers, and last but not the least all the participants of the workshop who spared their valuable time.
 
Many professionals wrote to me later about their inability to make it for the workshop due to official engagements. I would love to create more opportunities like these for those who missed this workshop and for all those who are passionate about usability. Hoping to meet you somewhere... sometime!
 
My best wishes for the bright future of all usability professionals! Till then Lage Raho:-)
 
Sincerely,
 
Dinesh
 
April 2007 Article on CHI Bangalore Community Portal
Community members are appealed to contribute their constructive views, insightful experiences and suggestions to enhance the usability of e-government systemson the CHI portal. It will be helpful for awareness creation among common citizens and the government officials about the importance of usability. Click the link below.
 
 
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