The Use of Metaphors in Product Design
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metaphors we design The use of metaphors by. in product design Nazli Cila Metaphors we design by: The use of metaphors in product design PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Technische Universiteit Delft, op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof. ir. K.C.A.M. Luyben, voorzitter van het College voor Promoties, in het openbaar te verdedigen op 26 September 2013 om 12:30 uur door NAZLI CILA Master of Science in Industrial Design, Middle East Technical University geboren te Bursa, Turkey. Dit proefschrift is goedgekeurd door de promotoren: Prof.dr. P.P.M. Hekkert Dr. V.T. Visch Samenstelling promotiecommissie: Rector Magnificus, voorzitter Prof.dr. P.P.M. Hekkert Technische Universiteit Delft, promotor Dr. V.T. Visch Technische Universiteit Delft, copromotor Prof.dr. L.L. Chen, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology Prof.dr. H. Leder, University of Vienna Prof.dr. J.P.L. Schoormans, Technische Universiteit Delft Prof.dr. G.J. Steen, VU University Amsterdam Prof.dr. E.S.H. Tan, University of Amsterdam Prof.dr.ir. P.M.A. Desmet, Technische Universiteit Delft, reservelid NAZLI CILA Metaphors we design by: The use of metaphors in product design ISBN © Copyright Nazli Cila, 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the author. /00 INTRODUCTION Metaphors we design by 5 /01 Reading guide 6 ANATOMY OF A PRODUCT METAPHOR What is a product metaphor? 11 Association between target and source 13 Mapping from source to target 18 Idiosyncratic characteristics 20 Summary of the chapter 23 /02 GENERATION OF A PRODUCT METAPHOR Metaphoric communication 27 Metaphor generation 30 Workshop on metaphor gen. 36 /03 Summary of the chapter 43 CREATING AN ASSOCIATION: SELECTING A SOURCE Source selection 49 Method 53 Results 56 Discussion 62 Conclusion 66 /04 CREATING AN ASSOCIATION: METAPHORICAL MEANING Metaphor Depth 71 Factors Affecting Metaphor Depth 72 The Study 76 Method 76 Results 78 Discussion 80 Conclusions 85 /05 MAPPING STRATEGIES Product Metaphors and Mapping 90 Mapping Strategies & Design Decisions 93 Method 96 Results 97 Discussion 99 /06 Conclusions 103 PRODUCT METAPHOR AESTHETICS Metaphors and aesthetics 109 The Present Studies 112 Study 1 112 Study 2 115 General Discussion 119 /07 GENERAL DISCUSSION Summary of the findings 125 Model of metaphoric communication 126 Some remarks on the findings 127 Summary 143 Implications for theory 135 Samenvatting 147 Implications for practice 136 References 151 Further studies 139 Appendix 159 Metaphors we design by 141 Acknowledgements 161 About the Author 165 /00 INTRODUCTION Maureen: “No? In what sense did we actually see an angel?” Jess: “What do you call it in poems?” Maureen: “I’m sorry?” Jess: “You know, in poems. And in English Literature. Sometimes you say something is like something and sometimes you say something is something. You know, my love is like a fuck-bloody rose or whatever.” Maureen: “Similes and metaphors.” Jess: “Yeah. Exactly. Shakespeare invented them, didn’t he? That’s why he was a genius.” Nick Hornby, A long way down 2 00. Introduction 3 Shakespeare is one of the most re- biguous for philosophical or scientific markable storytellers that the world has discourse. Unfortunately, metaphor has ever known. He is the creator of many long been acknowledged as a purely lin- greatest, textbook examples of meta- guistic device in the realm of poets to phors; he used metaphors so skillfully write things that could also be expressed and elegantly that the readers were im- in literal ways. This “romantic” view on mersed in very rich, imaginative, deep metaphors was subjected to a radical yet familiar stories and poems. Yet Jess shift by the formation of the linguis- is naïve, if not ignorant, to consider tics and psycholinguistics disciplines. him as the “inventor” of metaphor. As a Since then, there has been a growing matter of fact, metaphors exist long way recognition that the use of metaphors is before Shakespeare’s birth; they have a not confined to spoken or written lan- history that goes back at least to the era guage, but metaphors underlie how we of Aristotle (1895/2008). Traditionally, think, reason, and imagine in everyday metaphor is seen as a rhetorical figure life (Gibbs, 1994; Lakoff & Johnson, of speech through which one thing is 1980; Sweetser, 1990; Turner, 1998). described in terms of another, as when This means that the metaphors we use our Shakespeare states “All the world’s a are the surfacing of the primary ways in stage” to point out the mechanics of life. which we conceptualize the world (El Metaphor is so prevalent in all languages Refaie, 2003). We “think” metaphori- that we utter about one metaphor for cally. We structure and experience many every ten to twenty-five words, or about concepts, especially abstract ones such as six metaphors a minute (Graesser, Long time, emotion, and spatial orientation, & Mio, 1989). Even the American Sign in terms of metaphor (Kövecses, 2010; Language makes use of metaphors as fre- Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Reddy, 1979). quently as spoken English (Taub, 2004). These arguments stress Ortony’s (1975) claim that “metaphors are necessary and Aristotle (1895/2008) considered meta- not just nice” (p. 45). Metaphor is pre- phor as an ornament of language, which sent in all fields of human endeavor. As is appropriate for poetry but too am- Geary (2011) pertinently puts forward, 4 “Metaphor conditions our interpretations of the stock market and, through advertising, it surreptitiously infiltrates our pur- chasing decisions. In the mouths of politicians, metaphor subtly nudges public opinion; in the minds of businesspeople, it spurs creativity and innovation. In science, metaphor is the preferred nomenclature for new theories and new discoveries; in psychol- ogy, it is the natural language of human relationships and emo- tions.” (p. 3) Realizing the power of metaphor to underlie human cognition paved the way for studying not only the metaphorical expressions found in different kinds of dis- course that Geary listed, but also the ones that are nonverbal in nature. As Gibbs (2008) proudly pointed out in his “state-of-art” overview on metaphor, metaphor research is now as multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary as any topic being studied in contemporary academia. Scholars from various fields investigate the functions and meanings of metaphor in relation to art (Aldrich, 1968; Feinstein, 1985; Ken- nedy, 2008), architecture (Casakin, 2007, 2011), gestures (Cienki & Müller, 2008), political cartoons (El Refaie, 2003), comics (Forceville, 2005), mathematics (Lakoff & Núñez, 2000), music (Zbikowski, 2008), cinema (Carroll, 1996), advertisements (Forceville, 2002, 2008; Phillips & McQuarrie, 2004), interface and software design (Blackwell, 2006; Fishkin, 2004; Hurtienne & Blessing, 2008), and even hobby horses (Gombrich, 1963)! The reason that metaphor is considered as a relevant and eminent subject matter to study in all these diverse fields lies in its power to integrate disparate entities and bring new perspectives into existence by allowing us to “understanding and expe- riencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 3). This is the textbook definition of metaphor, which rightly turns up in almost every contemporary academic treatment of the subject. When Shakespeare defines the world as a stage, he urges us to perceive our lives anew from the viewpoint of a play in order to highlight its certain aspects (e.g. it is fleeting, we all make entrances and exits, we all play different roles, and so on). In literary parlance, the world is called the metaphor’s “target”, which is the thing we aim to define, and the stage is called its “source”, the thing that is associated with the target to assign a novel meaning to it. This terminology fits well with the etymology of the word “metaphor” itself. Derived from the Greek words meta, meaning “over”, “across”, or “beyond”, and pherō, meaning “to carry”, the literal meaning of meta- phor is “to carry over” (“Metaphor”, 2013, “Etymology”, para. 1), as Shakespeare carried over the most salient properties of a stage/play to the world in order to define it. Correspondingly, in my mother tongue Turkish—a language that belongs to a different family than Indo-European languages—the word for metaphor is “mecaz”. This word was adopted from Arabic “macāz”, which suitably means a “bridge”, as in a metaphor builds a meaning bridge between two distinct entities such as the world and a stage. 00. Introduction When we bridge two entities, we match what we know about the source with what 5 we do not know about the target. In this way, certain aspects of each are illuminated, others are downplayed, as well as new insights emerge and deeper levels of meaning are tapped. For this reason, metaphors are often referred to as the cognitive instru- ments used by “creative artists” to build relationships that urge us see things in a new light (Cupchik, 2003). This thesis – Metaphors we design by Product designers are one group of these creative artists who frequently resort to metaphors to exhibit original and aesthetic solutions to design problems. They may use metaphors as a tool or method in the design process, which help to identify, frame and solve design problems (Casakin, 2011; Hey, Linsey, Agogino & Wood, 2008; Kirsi, Ella & Turkka, 2009; Schön, 1979), break away from the limitations imposed by problem constraints (Casakin, 2007), justifying design decisions (Mad- sen, 1994), develop products that resonate with users (Kolb, Hey, Sebastian & Ago- gino, 2008), map users’ reactions to a product (Hey et al., 2008), create an intuitive language within a design team to perceive design objectives from alternative angles (Kirsi et al., 2009), and reason about the nature of a design process (e.g., design as search or design as exploration; Hey et al., 2008); or they can use metaphors in the end product as a means to render the values and meanings they want to assign to a product into a physical form.