Interface metaphor

An important aspect in DE and SMEs is the question of how to design and  implement interface environments that support the work and have a positive effect in organisational life. One of the possibiities is to conceptualize the dynamics, structure and functions in terms of metaphor. Several attempts have been already made in the area of HCI, for example the notion of a "digital office" where all information is processed electronically. Building user interfaces based on the metaphorical concepts is a common practice among engineers. Just consider the usage of concepts such as window, desktop, menu, trash in digital environments.

In the context of the OPAALS project, two environments have been analysed: Guigoh developed at  Instituto de Pesquisas em Tecnologia da Informaçao (São Paulo, Brasil) and Sironta developed at TechIdeas (Barcelona, Spain). These two systems use dierent development approaches, not only from an implementational perspective, but also from the point of view of design.

In the context of the OPAALS-community, SMEs and DEs, two categories of  relations, personal and working, must be considered. These categories are supported in both environments, Guigoh and Sironta. However, looking at these  environments through a metaphor lense, we can identify a major influence in each interface. In Guigoh, the personal and social relationships  come into foreground. Sironta, through implementing the room metaphor, brings  the working relationships into foreground.

Metaphors (based on Lackoff and Johnson):

1. Orientational metaphors
   are very important and useful components in user-interfaces due to their  ability to facilitate the navigation through different parts of a system. The advantage of using orientational metaphors lies in the fact that they are closely related to our physical experience. Some of the widely used examples are "up", "down", "left", or "right" (often displayed as icons). One example in Sironta is the "exit room" - metaphor, which is a part of a more abstract room-metaphor introducing the notion of entering and leaving the space. In Guigoh, the orientational metaphor is partially presented in form of navigating through personal networks ("next" and previous" signs). In DE, this type might be important not only for  navigation purposes ("left", "right"), but also for the quantification, for  instance, the associations with "more" and "less", or "up" and "down".
2. Ontological metaphors such as the room-metaphor used in Sironta. It introduces several characteristics to the interface that are familiar from  our physical world:
   • The room is not only an object and space, it is also a container for other objects (e.g. documents and files).
   • The restriction of access, i.e. entering the room.
   • The restriction of context, i.e. documents inside a room are separated from others
   • Communication with users that are in the same room
3. Structural metaphors differ from ontological metaphors in fact that they are more specific in the choice of the target. Examples of structural metaphors that we found in both Guigoh and Sironta are: "THE COLLECTION OF DATA IS A PAGE" and "THE COLLECTION OF DATA IS A DOCUMENT". Documents are objects in our physical world. Since we can do several things with them in our real life, it would be convenient to do it in a virtual world as well. We can write a document, put it in a folder, mail it to others, throw it into the trashcan, etc.

A strong metaphorical view/approach would not only help to identify important  functions of an interface, it would also help to determine malfunctioning mappings of actions.