Metaphors we work by
The desktop metaphor was coined and implemented for the first time in the ’70s by Xerox. This bold and humorous idea to put a desktop on a screen rather than the screen on the desktop is considered the original interface metaphor, the foundation of User Experience as a discipline.
This text outlines the connection between metaphors, tech, transformation, the human condition, and how all of these play into our design process in Field 33.
At Field 33 we are building a platform that empowers people to act within organizations by helping them gain a better understanding of their complex reality and providing them with the insights and tools to transform it if needed. So how does one make complexity user-friendly?
Interface Metaphors
Interface metaphors which are the building blocks of any human-computer interaction (HCI), originated from an unexpected source: research in Cognitive Linguistics. Lakoff & Johnson, as well as their predecessors and followers in the last 40 years, established that our understanding and conceptualization of the world is highly reliant on metaphors. They showed that we talk about abstract and subjective concepts across all languages like time, mind, and emotion by mapping them to more concrete and more clearly structured concepts from our physical surroundings and embodied experiences such as space, objects, motion, and temperature. In short, we make sense of the abstract by pairing it with the tangible, and we use metaphors to explain it to ourselves and communicate to others.
For example, here are three metaphors widely used in daily speech:
- He has a screw loose.
- He slipped a cog.
- I could see the wheels turning.
In all of these, the concept “mind” is described as a mechanical object — a machine. A mind is a machine is a conceptual metaphor that could be found in English, Russian, German, and many other languages.
Visual metaphors reflect the same logic. From data visualization to motion design and, of course, interaction design. A visual metaphor is a graphic structure that uses the physical characteristics of an artifact, its behavior, or its story to organize content meaningfully and to use the associations with the metaphor to convey additional meaning about the content.
Have you ever considered why the spinning action was chosen to symbolize waiting across all operating systems and applications?
One answer is that it is an established norm by now, and no one asks themselves how to communicate to the user that the device is busy. But if we take a step back and consider its origin, we would quickly land at the cogwheel abstraction.
The question remains whether the spinning cogwheel represents a busy machine because computers are machines, or perhaps it is a more complex metaphor representing the spinning wheels in one’s mind because computers “think.”
Organizational Metaphors
The Field 33 platform provides users with digital twins of their organization (DTO) and the tools to decipher and understands the highly complex context in which they operate. To achieve that, we turn to organizational metaphors as a window to our users’ mindset and sense-making. There is a lot of fascinating research about organizational metaphors and what they disclose about a company’s culture, decision-making style, and ability to adjust to changes — *change course* if you will.
To name just a few of these:
- An organization is a Machine that suggests the focus “increased efficiency and maximum utilization of labor” (Itkin & Nagy, 2014).
- An organization is a Ship; even in seemingly agile organizations, there is often a “steering circle,” and people are welcomed “on board.” This metaphor suggests a clear direction from start to finish because a ship’s destination is not a moving target.
- An organization is an Organism, open-systems that resemble living organisms and need to survive and grow through “adaptation, flexibility and the importance of the environment in which the organization exists” (Itkin & Nagy, 2014).
- An organization is a Brain organization considered multifaceted, complex systems of learning and information processing models.
- An organization is a Family; this metaphor emphasizes interpersonal relationships: caring, warm, and maybe discrete culture but also implies a strict hierarchy and top-down decision making; As families usually have parents.
- An organization is a Building. Here we talk about “A solid foundation” and emphasis structure.
- An organization is an Army as a result of conceptualizing the business world as a battlefield. We strategize, apply tactics and take over markets.
The metaphors above determine both the existence and the consciousness of the people who use them to some extent.
When looking at these examples today, in the age of exponential growth and continuous paradigm shift, it is easy to adopt a critical point of view and see these organizational metaphors as outdated and detrimental to the transformation process.
However, we try to consider not only how adhering to these metaphors restricts human behavior but also how our design solutions could harness their power to change our users’ mindsets. For example, thinking about an organization in terms of a brain could inspire us to explore the concept of neuroplasticity for business. Comparing them to living organisms makes us think about evolution in the context of business.
According to Don Norman, the godfather of UX, interface metaphors function in two ways:
- It is a way for designers to help users create the correct mental model of how the product functions.
- Interface metaphors are used to signify the action that the interface allows for.
As we design the interface of the Field 33 platform, we have these two objectives constantly in mind. Consider, however, that the core purpose of Field 33 is to create an accurate digital representation of reality in all its complexity and offer tools that enable meaningful and informed action. It means that our interface metaphors are tasked with conceptualizing and making accessible the complex reality itself. And so with this in mind, we explore metaphors that empower our users and inform our design process.
The Golden Compass
One metaphorical domain that proved invaluable in our design process is cartography. As usual, the origin of this insight could be traced to language. When we speak with our colleagues, we often say “Navigate the challenges,” “Explore domains,” “get an overview,” roadmap, milestones, the north star. These led us to think of DTOs as maps- a scaled, visually depicted representation of reality designed for humans to understand where they are and where they should go. Once we see DTOs as maps, we can conceptualize our users as explorers. They follow the map for discovery, and when they reach a blank spot, an unknown, they look around, gather information, and fill in the blanks, making the map more complete. Following this metaphor led us also to understand that Field 33 is a navigational system for complexity. Similar to the magical golden instrument in the Philipp Pulmann Novels: you have a question, you turn some knobs, pull some levers, and it reveals the truth.
Cartography, as well as other metaphorical domain we explore, are not left on the overarching conceptual level. They are woven into the fabric of our platform and could be traced on each level of our solution, from composing user journies that prioritize orientation to the level of icon choice. That is not to suggest that our minds are set. Just as our clients, we are navigating unfamiliar waters. And so we try different approaches to learn which are most useful for us as a team to create a shared understanding and a common ground for further exploration — metaphorically speaking.
Btw: We are growing our team. So if the prospect of navigating complexity with us excites you, and if you think that your perspective might contribute to our vision, please check out our job postings in Data Science, Design, Engineering, and Machine learning: Field 33 — a platform for the future organization
