[ID Discuss] Re: Metaphor

[Dan Saffer]

On Mar 23, 2005, at 4:49 PM, Alain D. M. G. Vaillancourt wrote:

>
> --- Dan Saffer <dan at odannyboy.com> wrote:
>
>>> the metaphor simply becomes limiting.
>>
>> Are you really limited by using a digital file folder?
>>
>
> The number of times I am limited is superior to the number of times I
> am empowered.

Perhaps it is time to replace the folder metaphor with something else. 
The metaphor it replaced (Group of Files is a Directory) is nearly 
forgotten. There may be many other ways of clustering files. I've been 
doing my Master's thesis project on using another metaphor--the 
pile--to organize digital documents. http://www.pilecabinets.com

But perhaps all metaphors have some sort of life cycle, from at first 
being a novelty, to being part of our unconscious ("dead"), to being 
replaced by another metaphor. A vast majority of metaphors are in that 
middle state of being in our unconscious, so that we don't see them as 
metaphors any longer. I seldom think of my virtual desktop as a desktop 
anymore, or a virtual folder as a physical folder any longer.

> In my case I usually have a choice between using one or
> the other, over time, so on the whole I am glad that the digital world
> and its folder metaphors are there. Others are not so fortunate, their
> work forces them into one type, wether it is empowering or not. Still
> others are just incapable of being empowered by digital metaphors or
> digital complexities.
>

There's a great quote from John Brock: "If you don't have a desktop, 
the desktop metaphor doesn't connect." We need to be careful of the 
metaphoric choices we make--they can empower or they can weaken.


Dan