Metaphorical Reasoning and Design Expertise: a Perspective for Design Education

The use of metaphors in design can help students reflect over a problem situation under an innovative point of view. During their design studies, students are supposed to acquire design skills, gain knowledge and enhance their level of expertise. This research explores the aid provided by metaphors in design problem solving, and its relationship to the development of design expertise. Empirical results showed that the level of expertise has no significant effect in the aid supplied by the use of metaphors in the earlier stages of the design process, concerned with the definition of design concepts and framing of design situations. In contrast, when expertise develops, the use of metaphors has a significant effect in the final stages of the design process, dealing with mapping, transfer, and application of structural relationships to the design problem. Although in the group of novices the use of metaphors was found to have a more significant effect in the earlier stages of the process, no differences between the different phases of the metaphorical process were found in the group of the advanced students. Metaphors are proposed as an educational method in the design studio, alternative to traditional education approaches.