Conceptual foundations of the metaphors of interaction

Metaphor is often viewed as fundamental to successful interface design and is presented as such in HCI courses and textbooks. We present a re-analysis of two common metaphors used in human computer interaction. We will argue that previous work has underestimated the complexity and richness of conceptual metaphor and this has led to a view that metaphor is just a tool for improving the learnability of an interface so that metaphors present the interface in terms with which the user is familiar. We will argue that this misconception is due to a confusion of the levels of interaction at which metaphor operates. Following cognitive linguistics, we view metaphor as fundamental to how humans conceptualize the world and therefore any interface will be viewed using the set of conceptual metaphors the user already uses in their natural language regardless of the designer’s intent. Therefore, we propose that interface design must be informed by current work in cognitive linguistics. Designers should aim should be to ensure that any interface is consistent with users’ conceptual metaphors rather than to attempt to force a novel metaphorical view on the user.