Web Advisory Group/Library Front Door
January 8, 1997

 

Exploring Metaphors for the Library Front Door

What happens when we consider Web pages as an interface? The purpose of an interface is to provide a means of communication between a user and information. The Web page has an inherent functionality that is not always immediately recognized. Designing an interface is different that presenting information, and it is the functionality of the interface that makes for a more useful and usable Web site. This distinction is critical at this stage of web site development, because you want to make certain that consider the functionality of the site as well as identifying and organizing the content. At the same time, you need to consider the representation of the content and how to create a Web site that is appealing, engaging and easy to navigate.

Metaphors are an obvious draw for Web site designers. They provide a unity and a means of representation that can be very appealing. Let's use this exercise below to try to work with the idea of metaphor, and finally to step back from the metaphor and ask: will a metaphor enhance or obscure the interface between our users and the information?

Exploring Metaphors

Information entered in this web form will be sent to Sarah Prown (sarah.prown@yale.edu). Feel free to use this page for your brainstorming exercises. It is on the Web for distribution only.

Step 1 - Undertand the Web Site

Think about the Front Door site as a whole, how it works. What is the Library Front Door? How will it be used? What is the purpose of this site?

Step 2 - Identify existing and potential problems

What are the problems with the existing front door page? What are the potential problems of the new front door?

Step 3 - Generate some metaphors

You've already done this step, so let's evaluate the metaphors. We can concentrate on the travel guide metaphor, but here are some of your other ideas for comparison.

  1. Travel Guide
  2. Democracy
  3. Architecture

Evaluating the Interface Metaphors

This section should help identify the strengths and weaknesses of a particular metaphor and hopefully lead you towards some new angles on a particular idea, or help shape new ideas. Keep in mind the first question: Understand your web site. By working through these various angles, it should help you clarify and explain your site design concepts to others.

 

Step 1 - What structure does the metaphor provide?

 

Step 2 - Applicability

How much of the metaphor is actually relevant to the problem? Are there things in the metaphor that might lead users in the wrong direction or raise false expectations?

 

Step 3 - Is the interface metaphor easy to represent?

The metaphor should have distinctive visual (and auditory) representations, as well as its own vocabulary.

 

Step 4 - Will your audience understand the metaphor?

The importance of user input during the development process.

 

Step 5 - Extensibility

How does the metaphor extend the structure and functionality of the interface? Will the metaphor scale as the web site grows?

 

Step 6 - Evaluation

Now, step back and ask yourself: will a metaphor enhance or obscure the interface between our users and the information?

Information entered on this form will be sent to Sarah Prown (sarah.prown@yale.edu)

Name:

Email address:

For more information on metaphors & interface design:

Cooper, Alan. "Myth of Metaphor" (http://www.cooper.com/articles/vbpj_myth_of_metaphor.html)

Gaver, William. "Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave: Metaphor and Mapping in Graphical Interfaces" (http://www.acm.org/sigchi/chi95/Electronic/documnts/shortppr/wwg2bdy.htm)

Art of Human Computer Interface Design. ed. Brenda Laurel. Reading Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1990.

 

Last updated 1/97 by Sarah Prown