Understanding the role of visual metaphors in emerging media arts research and practice

Abstract

The concept of metaphor has made significant contributions to expanding our horizons and range of knowledge and experience over the centuries. Using the associations between source and target domains, metaphors enable rich expressions in arts and culture, from literature, painting, and music to user interface design and media arts. Metaphors enable us to integrate disparate entities and bring new perspectives into existence by allowing us to understand and experience one in terms of another.

Visual metaphors become significant and effective tools, from visual communication to graphical user interface design. Because visual metaphors are created by transferring some part of the properties of source domain to target domain using various visual grammars and design principles. It enables designers to express and enhance the meaning of the design outcomes, which are the by-product of a metaphorical thinking process.

Despite the significance and prevalence of metaphors in the visual domain, previous research has tended to focus on the effectiveness and efficiency that visual metaphors can generate at a surface level. Our understanding of the role and impact of visual metaphor at a conceptual, cognitive level is still limited. Therefore, this dissertation aims to propose a conceptual framework that allows for the creation of a visual metaphor with a better design rationale to transform the significance of a verbal metaphor into a visualization to achieve various design goals.

The framework of this study was gradually developed through a series of experimental design projects serving different design goals, such as knowledge representation, aesthetic experiences, and kinesthetic empathy. We further conducted user studies to examine what design considerations are involved and what types of cognitive operations are performed during the transformation process using critical task analysis for validation.

With an emphasis on visual metaphor creation, this study also aims to position our work in the field of metaphor research by contributing to a more comprehensive explanation on how a verbal metaphor can be transformed into a visual space. Additionally, this study relates the design theories of metaphor comprehension and generation to the domain of emerging media arts and art and cultural informatics.