An approach for designing composite metaphors for user interfaces

A composite-metaphor interface is a computer interface consisting of a combination of two or more metaphors. As computer systems have become more sophisticated, researchers have proposed the use of multiple metaphors to design computer systems because they would better match the characteristics of complex target systems; however, due to the difficulty of designing interface metaphors and limited research in this area, there are few guidelines or accepted standards for generating and implementing composite metaphors for interface design. In this paper, the authors propose an approach for designing composite metaphors. We first present the metaphor design strategies as we interviewed eight game designers, then summarise the design considerations from the metaphor literatures. Finally, we propose the design approach for selecting and combining metaphors in designing composite-metaphor interfaces.