Sarah A. Rice just wrote a nice piece on Boxes And Arrows about how metaphors can increase customer acceptance.

In the article, she argues that metaphors are a good tool to introduce and accelerate acceptance of new concepts to users.

She provided a lot of good examples, such as Tivo borrowing functions and ideas from the VCR.

I agree with Sarah, metaphors are a power tool. Metaphors are symbols (but symbols are not necessarily also metaphors). A symbol is the understanding that someone has about a specific social artifact. For example, a red octagon at an intersection means “stop”, an arrow pointing to the right at the upper right hand corner of a web page next to a form field means “execute this search criteria”, someone winking at you in a casual conversation means “don’t take this too seriously”, etc.

My point is that symbols are socially constructed – I don’t think the author of the article would disagree with me, but it is a point that needs attention. Using metaphors or symbols can be very tricky because not everyone is going to understand them, especially in a global context. As globalization continues to cannibalize our niche worldview, we need to start thinking about developing or digressing to a more common social vocabulary. A vocabulary that is concise, generic and meaningful. If our goal is to communicate successfully, then it is important for us to leverage communicational shortcuts in common language not in highly specialized and potentially alienating metaphors.

Using metaphors and symbols is powerful. No debate there. It allows people to feel like they belong to a larger group of people that “gets” the meaning. And they do save time and rhetoric. But they also alienate certain cultures and subcultures.

It always goes back to your target audience, I guess. If you think they will “get” it, then use it.

So, the question is “what is the common language?” Certain metaphors are generally universal that we can adapt, such as knobs, buttons and switches. What are other metaphors in our common social vocabulary that we can use, borrow and change?

All in all, a good thinking piece – I highly recommend the read. And I look forward Part 2 of this article.