Almost everything we experience in the world we experience through metaphor. Even when we talk about abstract things that don't have physical form, we talk about them in terms of directionality and bodies.

Stock markets go up, our moods are low, and past years are behind us.

So what makes this useful to us on the internet? Strong visual metaphor is really key for people understanding things. Capturing someone's attention is critical, and you want people to immediately understand what you're trying to tell them before you lose their attention.

If communicating to your users more effectively is something you're interested in, in this episode, you'll also learn about Maggie's process for creating, illustrating, and effectively using visual metaphors on the web!

Homework

  • Spend 10 minutes brainstorming metaphors for a website that you want to build or something else that you're building right now.

Guest: Maggie Appleton

Host: Kent C. Dodds