Article Idea:
Using Adoption Metaphors For Increased Customers Acceptance
suggested by Sarah A. Rice on 2006/04/17
Do you ever have problems explaining a new product or service to others? Something you know is cool but not quite like other things? Metaphors are commonly used to help customers understand more about a product or service that companies offer. Making sure you use the right metaphor to explain your product or service to others is essential. A great example of a successful metaphor is Tivo. When it originally came out on the market, it was billed as something that would replace the VCR. It does many things that the VCR does, but also much more. It records tv shows so that you can watch them later. But it also pauses live TV, and has revolutionized how many people interact with their television. Using the VCR metaphor simply helped potential customers have a starting place for understanding how they might potentially use this new thing that was being introduced to them.
In the proposed article, I will to talk more about metaphors, how they can be used to help increase customer adoption (“adoption metaphors”), and talk about the lifecycle of a metaphor. Do metaphors grow old? Do they outgrow their usefulness? What are the signs of a successful adoption metaphor? I have other examples of successful metaphors that have been used, and how their success has been benchmarked.
These thoughts are based on work that I have done in cognitive linguistics and grew out of a workshop that I’ve been putting together to make cognitive metaphors, framing and blending relevant to the Information Architecture and User Experience Design community.
Want to see this idea turned into a story?
4 people said yes. | 0 people said no.
Mr. Max
1 Reputation points
Posted 2006/04/17 @ 19:03PM with
Thumbs up is good ;-)
And I would enjoy reading a bit about the relationship between metaphors and compound descriptors such as Eeee Mail , cell-PHONE. ...or not.
Victor Lombardi
50 Reputation points
Posted 2006/04/17 @ 19:06PM with
Oh man, this is so important. It’s important to us, but also to the rest of the world (the New York Times has covered it). Tech companies are inventing new gizmos faster than people can understand what they are, and we can help.
Having a great piece on this from Sarah would be good for B&A.
Frank Ramirez
1 Reputation points
Posted 2006/04/17 @ 21:36PM with
Yes, this is important. Metaphors are great for communicating our inventions to our future customers and they help us keep our focus during design and implementation.
Anything B&A can do to widen (not just deepen) our T-shapes is good IMO. This article will explore one link between design and marketing/business strategy, which is probably of growing importance to many old-school IAs looking to step it up.
Jess McMullin
38 Reputation points
Posted 2006/04/17 @ 22:55PM with
Having spent a lot of time in the past looking at framing, and having talked with Sarah about her ideas recently, I’m excited to hear more. For me, framing is at the peak of design maturity (23kb pdf), and the more we learn about it, the better.
Andres Zapata
42 Reputation points
Posted 2006/04/18 @ 13:08PM with
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Andres Zapata
42 Reputation points
Posted 2006/04/18 @ 13:10PM with
Go for it! I am interested in exploring the intersect between symbol and meaning (or metaphor) and its implications to our designs. Culture and language are BIG parts of this discussion – I look forward to your piece.