Abstract
There is a lack of emerging methods for guiding designers in innovating cultural contents beyond superficial manifestations in the process of product design with the consideration of modern lifestyles. Grounded in metaphor theory from cognitive linguistics, this article proposes a theoretical model—as a diagrammatic tool for design practice—assisting designers and/or researchers in analyzing and integrating the elements derived from Traditional Cultural Properties (TCPs) into product functions meeting modern needs. A quasi-experiment was conducted to illustrate how this theoretical model was applied in two design cases, which aimed to blend the value of TCPs and modern lifestyles metaphorically. We argue that this theoretical model can assist designers and/or researchers in designing products, which can spur reflections on culture, enhance the user experience, and improve modern life with local identity through metaphorically blending of TCPs and modern lifestyles.
Highlights
Cultural designs have attracted great attention in the last decade [1,2,3]
This article introduces a framework of metaphorical design with Traditional Cultural Properties (TCPs) for designers and researchers to enhance cultural reflection in users, aiming to improve modern lifestyles in terms of cultural satisfaction
There have been many prior attempts to reinvent the cultural significance of TCPs in design practice, the metaphorical design approach has seldom been discussed as a way to promote users’ interpretations of cultural meanings
Summary
Cultural designs have attracted great attention in the last decade [1,2,3]. On the one hand, design artifacts communicating region-specific features can satisfy users’ cultural needs [4,5]. The interplay between TCPs and modern lifestyles has been further investigated to increase the contemporary socioeconomic viability and human value of TCPs [4] From this perspective, culturally significant design has been argued by design researchers and practitioners to construe that the qualities of TCPs can be innovatively transformed into modern products and services shaping people’s lifestyles [8,9,10]. Scholars [5,11] reported that products carrying cultural elements could satisfy users’ requirements in terms of meanings and emotions This is consistent with Norman’s [12] definition of reflective design: when there is cognitive communication between a user and a product.
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