Designing a Metaphor for Your Model

Abstract

EDITOR'S SUMMARY

Creating metaphors to explain a data model is vital to explain the model to people without the knowledge or experience to understand it quickly. Much like family trees evoke a sense of relationships between people by using the structure and design of a tree, strong metaphors for information architecture can help anyone understand the relationships in any data model. Good metaphors, such as web “pages,” stick with people, even if they are not completely accurate. New ways of expressing relationships in data demand new metaphors in order to express the necessity of data models to executives deciding whether or not to fund a project or even programmers that need to build around the model. Complex metaphors such as oceans, with ecosystems of fish and other organisms reacting to their environment, are far more accurate and fluid for explaining modern information architecture.