The purpose of this study is to suggest a systematic use of metaphors for interactive product
design. To do this, we applied domain distance theory from cognitive linguistics to
interactive product design. Domain distance theory proposes two forms of distances: one is
within-domain distance or the degree to which two concepts occupy dissimilar positions
with respect to their own class or domain; and the other is between-domain distance, or the
degree to which the classes or domains occupied by the concepts are themselves dissimilar.
And it testifies that the good metaphors have large between-domain distance but small
within-domain distance because metaphors are more striking as target domain and source
domain are more dissimilar and easily understood when the properties of the target and
source are more similar. To discover the effects of the theory on metaphorical design, the
experiment was carried out with modified measurement methods of two forms of distances.
Stimuli for the experiments were a collection of nine interactive products with each
product’s source and target domains which were chosen by five industrial designers. The
rating of each interactive product’s aptness and comprehensibility was measured with the
product itself and between-domain distance and within-domain distance was also measured
with the comparison of the source and the target. The result from the experiment shows that
within-domain distance is negatively correlated with aptness and comprehensibility of
interactive products, while between-domain distance is positively correlated with aptness
and comprehensibility at a low level. Specifically, among four items of aptness, betweendomain
distance
is
strongly
correlated
with
how
interesting
the
product
is
perceived
comparing
to
other
three
items
of
aptness.
DRS 2012 Bangkok
