Design Metaphors Research Articles

Heart of the future home: a multidimensional model of inclusive kitchen for older people in the UK

With the development of smart technology and aging societies, the living and housing environments for older people are undergoing transformation. Designers must understand the changing capabilities, lifestyles, preferences, and inspirations of older people for their future homes, in which the kitchen is seen as the heart. To gain a deeper understanding of the requirements of older people in promoting healthier lifestyles and inclusive daily practices, the authors identified five key factors of kitchen design through a literature review, developing an initial model. Subsequently, a focus group was conducted in the UK to explore the perspectives and expectations of older people, where metaphors for future kitchens were collected, and further insights were used to refine the model. The refined model for a future-inclusive kitchen encompasses six dimensions: Environment/space, Technology/interaction, Emotion/affect, Health and safety, Human factors and well-being, and Sustainability. Through using metaphors, this study offers a multidimensional lens to investigate the future user experience of inclusive kitchens. The significance of this study lies in the originality of combining a literature review, and user study with design metaphors. A future-proof inclusive kitchen design model is proposed to provide guidance for future design directions of age-friendly environments.

Research on consumers' purchase intention of cultural and creative products-Metaphor design based on traditional cultural symbols.

Chinese traditional cultural symbols possess great aesthetic and cultural value, and are widely utilized in product design. In this study, we explore the relationship between metaphor design based on traditional cultural symbols, customer experience and cultural identity, and further estimate how these three variables stimulate consumers' perceived value to generate consumers' purchase intention. Based on existing traditional cultural literature and Stimulus-organism-response theory (SOR), we proposed a theoretical research model to characterize the relationship among metaphor design based on traditional cultural symbols, customer experience, cultural identity, perceived value and consumers' purchase intention. A research survey was conducted and 262 questionnaires were collected in total with 241 valid. We used Smart PLS graph version 3.0 for data analysis. Results indicate that the cognition of metaphor design based on traditional cultural symbols and customer experience has a direct and significant impact on the emotional value thereby, eliciting consumers' purchase intention, metaphor design based on traditional cultural symbols is directly and indirectly (i.e., through customer experience or perceived value) positively associated with consumers' purchase intention, also customer experience is directly and indirectly (i.e., through perceived value) associated with consumer purchase intention, cultural identity mediates the indirect effect of customer experience and perceived value on purchase intention, the moderating role of cultural identity between customer experience and perceived value is not significant. Our findings help to expand the existing literature on consumer purchase intentions by rationally using traditional cultural symbols in the product metaphor design.

Experiencing the body as play: Cultivating older adults’ exergame experiences using embodied metaphors and multimodal feedback

Physical activity (PA) is promising in increasing active life for older adults, but its repetitive and fatigue-inducing nature greatly harms older adults’ motivation to participate. Recently, there has been a growing interest in applying exergames to improve older adults’ PA adherence and engagement. To better support body-based interactions, embodied metaphors and multimodal feedback are suggested to ensure effective and meaningful mapping between elderly players’ input actions and exergame responses, but their effectiveness have not been fully investigated. After developing a list of embodied and ontological metaphors based a series of user-centered approaches, two experiments were conducted to investigate how embodied metaphors and multimodal feedback impact older adults'’ playing experience of PA exergames, among fifty-nine and twenty-five older adults, respectively. Regarding the embodied metaphor design, the results indicated that a higher embodiment level significantly and positively influenced the participants’ acceptance behavior in terms of their attitudes toward the exergame, and a higher information richness level demonstrated significantly positive effects on familiarity perception and all aspects of acceptance behavior. For the multimodal feedback design, the results indicated that 3D visual feedback better facilitated the participants’ sense of embodiment and immersion, as well as their acceptance behavior, compared to 2D visual feedback. Furthermore, constant tactile feedback in a continuous-only or continuous-and-augmented way significantly improved the participants’ PA movement performance and sense of embodiment, rather than instant feedback. Accordingly, a list of design guidelines for PA exergame development is proposed, with the possible contributions and limitations of this research addressed.

Enhancing corporate brands through service robots: The impact of anthropomorphic design metaphors on corporate brand perceptions

AbstractThe increasing introduction of intelligent, interactive robots in the service industry raises concerns about the potential dehumanization of service provision and its influences on corporate brand perceptions. To avoid adverse effects, new service development (NSD) managers seemingly favor service robots that feature anthropomorphic design metaphors, so they appear more human‐like. The current research investigates explicitly how customers' perception of a robot's anthropomorphic design metaphors might spill over to affect corporate brand perceptions. Study 1, a picture‐based scenario study with 109 participants, reveals the impact of anthropomorphic design metaphors on untested corporate brand outcomes, such as brand trust and brand experience. Then Study 2, a video‐based scenario study with 530 participants, addresses whether these effects depend on the service context. In Study 3, a field study of 393 participants, the authors examine how anthropomorphic design metaphors influence other firm‐related outcomes (e.g., shopping enjoyment, sales). The combined results confirm that anthropomorphic design metaphors strongly affect brand trust and brand experience, as well as other critical firm‐related outcomes; they also reveal notable context effects, such that customers of people‐processing (e.g., care services) and mental‐stimulus‐processing (e.g., shopping assistance) services appear more likely to use anthropomorphic design metaphors as corporate brand cues. Our research encourages NSD managers and scholars to consider the effects of introducing anthropomorphic service robots on corporate brands.

Metaphoric veiled image-schema of kinship organization in ceremonial space: A south Andean case

This study is an interdisciplinary approach to a veiled metaphoric design expressed in the present-day spatial layout of ecologically-derived patronyms of Mapuche lineages and families positioned in public ceremonial plazas. The perspective combines ethnoarchaeological, cognitive, iconographic, oral tradition, allegoric metaphor, and historical approaches to the organization and meaning of this design, taking into account the past and present dimensions of ritual media (e.g., political, ideological and sensorial) to render a concept publicly graspable. Shamans and other informants state that the design represents an ancient foundational schema established for intercommunity political solidarity during times of both peace and conflict in the Spanish colonial and Republican era of the south-central Andes of Chile. Shamans were asked to draw their mental image of the hidden design of the plaza to pictographically reveal its visual representation. By examining the iconography of patronyms depicting a loosely structured order of families hierarchically positioned in ceremonial space, the invisible nature of this pattern and its wider political and kinship meaning is considered. Viewed from an archaeological perspective, this schema is suggested to be associated with a “chiefdom” or intermediate, polity-level society, and may represent a type of mental imagery and template that served as a precursor to the visible iconography on wood, stone, adobe, ceramic, textile and other media of complex Pre-Colombian societies. Ultimately, this schema is a conceptual metaphor: mapping and structuring knowledge of a trophic hierarchy of elements in the natural world to evoke a political and public organizational principle through sensorial experiences and life concerns in the invisible and visible domains of an Andean-like ceremonial format.

Research and application of art design based on visual communication technology

Abstract This paper deeply discusses the art design based on visual communication technology, studies its application in modern art expression, and its influence and promotion on design aesthetics. The research starts from three aspects: the hierarchical needs of art design, the relationship between visual communication and art design expression and the integration path of art design and visual communication. Through the hierarchical analysis of art design expression content, the application of media design, composition design and metaphor design in visual art is discussed in depth. Meanwhile, the relationship between art design and visual communication is studied and the path of integration between art design and visual communication is proposed. The experimental part includes the extraction of art design style features, the recognition of artworks based on color style and texture features, and the satisfaction analysis of art design effects. The results show that the method proposed in this study has high accuracy in art style recognition, excellent performance in art texture recognition, and good feedback regarding satisfaction with art design effects. This proves the effective application of visual communication technology in art design, which is significant in promoting modern art design development.

Exploring the Impact of Metaphors in Product Design: A Study on Product Inspired by Sufi Beliefs in Turkey

Exploring the Impact of Metaphors in Product Design: A Study on Product Inspired by Sufi Beliefs in Turkey

Bringing Ecological Urbanism and Urban Political Ecology to transformative visions of water sensitivity in cities

Ecological Urbanism and Water Sensitive Urban Design have a central contribution to make in protecting and caring for people, nature and water in cities but readings of Urban Political Ecology evidence how ecological metaphors in urban design can easily translate into discriminatory urban development processes. This paper posits that for UPE to become meaningful for urban design practice, it is necessary to move beyond a critique. Instead, the insights of UPE should be pro-actively mobilized to develop a new vision of water sensitivity. The paper therefore identifies ways in which the key learnings of the critical social sciences, namely UPE, can be mobilized to support Water Sensitive Urban Design practice. How can ecological urbanists imagine new, more politically astute, forms of water sensitive living, charting design processes that not just recognize but also actively question and challenge uneven socio-ecological dynamics? In answering this question, the goal of this article is to make use of critique from UPE to influence Ecological Urbanists' goals and activate their political alignment with agendas that prioritize social equity. In imagining a new form of WSUD, we tried as much as possible not to over-instrumentalize UPE by rejecting the suggestion that some UPE ‘lessons’ or ‘insights’ could simply be inserted into ecological urbanism. On a different direction, we argue for a different emphasis in WSUD that does not deny the causes of current environmental degradation, pollution and depletion but, on the contrary, actively takes issue with and challenges the extractive and exploitative roots of contemporary urbanization processes.

Toward Production Design Metaphor: Implications of Situated Authorship and Meaning-Making

Abstract The task of production design is to create locations where cinematic events occur. Since the subjective experiences of the characters in the film are mainly observable externally, the entire film practice aims to express them through secondary means, for example by design and cinematography. The filmmaker can choose what she brings to the foreground from the character’s experience and what aspects she emphasizes. In the case of production design, it is possible to express metaphorical correlations through the spatialization process of cinematic events while anticipating the embodied situatedness of the camera and the eventual film viewer. The notion of situated authorship is discussed through iconic design examples from Gone With the Wind and The Birds, which have historically shaped the concept of production design practice. In the case study referring to my work as a designer, I intend to evaluate the schemas used in the spatialization process in the context of Embodied Simulation Theory (EST) and Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). Here, I propose the idea of a dynamic staging scenario that indicates how cinematic movement – especially the action of the scene and the movement of the camera onset – is considered in spatialization. With the discussion, I conduct a design analysis with which the properties of the space can be evaluated based on the concepts of image schema, primary metaphor, and conceptual metaphor.

Humans and cyber-physical systems as teammates? Characteristics and applicability of the human-machine-teaming concept in intelligent manufacturing.

The paper explores and comments on the theoretical concept of human-machine-teaming in intelligent manufacturing. Industrial production is an important area of work applications and should be developed toward a more anthropocentric Industry 4.0/5.0. Teaming is used a design metaphor for human-centered integration of workers and complex cyber-physical-production systems using artificial intelligence. Concrete algorithmic solutions for technical processes should be based on theoretical concepts. A combination of literature scoping review and commentary was used to identify key characteristics for teaming applicable to the work environment addressed. From the body of literature, five criteria were selected and commented on. Two characteristics seemed particularly promising to guide the development of human-centered artificial intelligence and create tangible benefits in the mid-term: complementarity and shared knowledge/goals. These criteria are outlined with two industrial examples: human-robot-collaboration in assembly and intelligent decision support in thermal spraying. The main objective of the paper is to contribute to the discourse on human-centered artificial intelligence by exploring the theoretical concept of human-machine-teaming from a human-oriented perspective. Future research should focus on the empirical implementation and evaluation of teaming characteristics from different transdisciplinary viewpoints.

The Conceptualisation of the E(ducation)-Pizza Game as a Radical Collaborative Thinking and Curriculum and Learning Design Transformation Tool

A cross-disciplinary team of educators and Education Services staff at the University of Leeds collaborated with students to co-create a game which can be used to foster curriculum and learning conversations in playful and liberating ways. Inspired by the concept of food as a connector, the project used pizza and its toppings as a metaphor for a game design which fosters radical collaboration, exploration, and democratic participation, where all voices and perspectives matter. The game is designed to enable small groups to create their own pizza representing their university experience, a programme of study, a module, or a specific pedagogic dimension of one of those experiences, such as assessment, or personal tutoring. This contribution reports on the first three stages of the game design process namely the concept identification, research and defining game mechanics and the human-centred design process and experiences of the project team and what has been learnt so far.

The Actuality of the Metaphor in Architectural Design

The design process in architectural design studio’s first classes for students is often based on images that are erroneously used as references by copying some formal choices. In the most general sense, this issue is related to a gap between architectural culture and society, as architecture is considered a virtual and consumable object. Those problems could be faced with an old but still effective tool that is the metaphor. Architecture is mainly known by images, and each image has a visible and an invisible part; the latter concerns the culture that underlies it. The paper assumes the metaphor is a design tool that can be helpful in the initial stages of the design process as it allows anyone to quickly connect images, ideas, and experiences, getting deeper into the invisible part of images. Since the metaphor is mainly a linguistic agent, most of the studies concern the use of the metaphor in the field of theoretical criticism and for reviewing other projects. The paper proposes to integrate this approach by investigating the metaphor to support the transfer of shapes and figures between different architectures. Furthermore, the proposed process foresees a permanent part based on a dynamic and more mobile part where metaphorical thinking finds space. Therefore, two types of use of the metaphor are put forward: the first interprets existing buildings by recognising both linguistic metaphors used by the critics and those crystallized in the architectural form; the second instead stimulates students to use visual metaphors in determining the shape and volume of the project.

Color as metaphor in architectural design

AbstractIn the early stage of a building design, forming a design concept is the first step. The architect must assimilate and organize information involving spatial needs, engineering, building codes, and budget considerations. They must also consider its visual appearance, how the building fits into its physical context, and, most importantly, how to conceive of the building holistically as both functional and aesthetic. A process for accomplishing this will use a methodology associated with intuition and imagination. A metaphor is used that gives form to the building through an analogy that imitates its activities and function and serves as a device for conceiving of the building as a whole. Making a design diagram that defines the concept using the metaphor and showing the relationship of the critical parts of the building is the biggest challenge in this stage. A new approach is to assign color to these parts in the design diagram. With the metaphor as guide, the hierarchical status of the parts will be shown by the perceptual weight of the colors in juxtaposition to one another by contrasts in hue, value, and chroma. The results show that the addition of color increases the clarity and comprehension of the design concept in the eyes of the designer, in visual presentations to faculty in academic settings, and to clients in the profession. The color decisions latter in the process may differ from those used in the diagram, but these decisions will adhere to the established hierarchies of the building parts as foreground or background colors. This methodology is intended to be a tool for students in architecture as well as professional architects.

CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS IN AUGMENTED REALITY PROJECTS

Purpose. The objective of this study is to conduct a semiotic analysis of augmented reality projects, with the aim of establishing patterns and identifying the most common conceptual metaphors. The study seeks to determine the impact of these metaphors on functional and symbolic form.
 Methodology. To achieve the research goal, the visual materials were subjected to visual-analytical, formal, functional, and semiotic analysis methods.
 Results. The present study identified the eight most common metaphors used in AR project design, namely the magic mirror, false window, active print, X-ray vision, geo-layer, aquarium, visor, and flashlight. The impact of these metaphors on the functional-figurative form can vary depending on the metaphor chosen, and may set more blurred or specific boundaries. It was found that metaphors differ not only in their figurative-semantic differences, but also in the viewer’s position regarding representation, the type of first or third-person view, the impact on the imagery of the content, and the nature of interaction with space. While most metaphors benefit from the use of three-dimensional graphics, some, such as mirrors, active print, and sights, can use two-dimensional graphics without depriving AR of the feeling of naturalness. One technique for playing with metaphors is to go beyond conventional boundaries and manipulate space. The study also revealed that AR based on video mixing more frequently uses metaphors than optical mixing, which can directly merge with the environment. It was demonstrated that using the same metaphor does not limit the creative potential in solving tasks, and leaves the designer sufficient space for maneuvering and the possibility of both literal and formal following of the metaphor. Overall, the findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of the role of metaphors in AR project design and provide insights for designers to effectively use metaphors to enhance user experience.
 Scientific novelty. An analysis of augmented reality (AR) projects was conducted with the aim of identifying conceptual metaphors. A synthesis of these conceptual metaphors was performed, followed by a typology-based classification of the AR projects grounded in the identified metaphors.
 Practical significance. The findings of this research contribute to the theoretical foundation of designing AR products by providing a framework for representing AR design concepts. The identified metaphors can be utilized as a guide for designers to develop effective AR interfaces.

Design Metaphors for Understanding User Expectations of Socially Interactive Robot Embodiments

The physical design of a robot suggests expectations of that robot’s functionality for human users and collaborators. When those expectations align with the robot’s true capabilities, users are more likely to adopt the technologies for their intended use. However, the relationship between expectations and socially interactive robot design is not well understood. This article applies the concept of design metaphors to robot design and contributes the Metaphors for Understanding Functional and Social Anticipated Affordances dataset of 165 extant robots and the expectations users place on them. We used Mechanical Turk to crowd-source user expectation over three user studies. The first study ( N = 382) associated crowd-sourced design metaphors to different robot embodiments. The second study ( N = 803) assessed initial social expectations of robot embodiments. The final study ( N = 805) addressed the degree of abstraction of the design metaphors and the functional expectations projected on robot embodiments. We performed analyses to gain insights into how design metaphors can be used to understand social and functional expectations of robots and how these data can be visualized to be useful for study designers and robot designers. Together, these results can serve to guide robot designers toward aligning user expectations with true robot capabilities, facilitating positive human–robot interaction.

An Underdeveloped Metaphor: The Mismatched Designs and Motivations of Digital Picture Interactions

Picture interactions are key to daily and long-term social connections between families and communities, especially through reminiscence. Across the nearly 200-year history of domestic photography, this social reminiscence has been accomplished largely through photo albums. However, in the now common digital setting, albums are pushed aside for the endless film roll metaphor. In this article, we explore this metaphor through the 20-year history of proposed digital picture interactions from Human–Computer Interaction research, and compare this to ongoing interactions with modern picture tools. Through these, we reveal that this prominent design metaphor does not create space for social reminiscence, but does fit the novel use of immediate sharing seen across social networking. Furthermore, the endless and ever-growing nature of digital film rolls are not meaningfully browsable for either intended use. We close by reconnecting to the past works that explore the broad potential of digital pictures.

An investigation into generation Z’s mindsets of entertainment in an autonomous vehicle

Alongside the development of digital life, certain concepts gain new dimensions among new generations. When entertainment is the subject, it creates emergent desires, behaviours and mindsets in the social and consumer cultures. However, existing perspectives around in-car entertainment do not fully embrace the digitally dynamic environment in which Generation Z is heavily involved. This paper uses the future autonomous vehicle's interior context as a case study to understand Gen Z's meaning change around in-car entertainment. It draws on a qualitative research methodology by combining semi-structured interviews with design metaphor activities to understand Gen Z's altered mindset with the impact of digital technology. As ultimate findings, eight different in-car entertainment mindsets of Gen Z emerged: Effortlessness Seeking, Sense of Belonging, Balance Seeking, Authenticity Seeking, Advocating, Decision-Making, Creating and Interacting. The implications of an autonomous vehicle’s entertainment experience were discussed. It is expected that this study will contribute to understanding the shifting mindset and behaviour of Gen Z in how they desire to entertain themselves within an autonomous vehicle. The study suggests what to consider regarding maximising in-car entertaining experiences for Gen Z.

Healing fabulations: a dialogic methodology for digital codesign in health research

ABSTRACT Recent research has highlighted the importance of responding to trauma and promoting healing when working with participants in sensitive contexts. This article presents a new methodology for design research on health topics which combines principles from narrative medicine (health storytelling) with codesign. In this collaborative, dialogic approach, participatory action research cycles of storytelling are used to inform a process of digital codesign, positioning participants as peer researchers. The resulting prototypes (termed healing fabulations) are a new type of design artefact which captures each participant’s lived experience while also extending it into a speculative future. Discussion of the methodology shows how the approach protects participant wellbeing during research on their health experiences, addresses common criticisms of digital design research, and explores the importance of visual metaphor and aesthetic in design for health. The article concludes with a discussion of the methodology’s replicability and use in future research.

‘Text-To-Text’ Metaphor As An Aspect Of Meaning Making In Osundare’s Poetry: A Stylistic Examination

This paper analyses pre-existing texts as rhetorical signifiers of meaning in Osundare’s poetic oeuvre. These texts are recreated and appropriated as a metaphorical representation of meaning within the cultural context of use in Osundare’s poetry. I engage this as an aspect of Osundare’s literary idiolect because, in -spite of the body of scholarship in Osundare studies, the deployment of these pre-existing texts as metaphorical tropes of meaning in Osundare has yet to be analytically examined. For analytical convenience, the topology of Osundare’s metaphor design can largely be conceived as a matrix of two creative formats: ‘text-to-text’ and ‘word-to-word’ frames, and the former, being under-examined, forms the focus of this paper. Metaphoric abstractions from existing prime and second-order texts are what we described as ‘text-to-text’ metaphors. This is when pre-existing texts or phenomena like proverbs and oral tales (second-order texts), and actual events (prime-order texts) existing in the culture are manipulated and textualized for meaning in the process of poetic composition.

Metaphors To Design By: Developing Representations of Engineering Design

For all design instructors, the metaphors we select in teaching inform the process students learn. Visual metaphors of design both shape thinking and reinforce an approach to design. This paper critiques some of the most common design process models to understand how they afford and disafford student learning. We share two metaphors for our design model. We analyze their efficacy and utility for our students to try and improve the quality of our teaching and offer similar support for others making metaphors in design and elsewhere.