Visual Metaphors – Elevating The User Experience

Visual Metaphors – Elevating The User Experience

Here in the digital age, with the human attention span getting smaller by the day, the phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words” has never been truer or more relevant. Our mental capacity has not increased, but the amount of information we are required to process has gone through the roof.

Try explaining complex ideas in words, and you’ll lose your audience. That’s where graphic design and “visual metaphors” that represent and explain abstract ideas can come in handy. Writing for the “Inside Design” blog, author Wynne Renz explores the increasing use of these graphic and visual metaphors in some of today’s most compelling and award-winning ads.

“Now with digital product design, visual metaphors are even stronger because they add an additional element—not telling, or showing, but allowing the user to experience meaning through rich animation and scroll-able surprises,” Renz says. “And those who utilize them get their sites noticed.”

Renz explains further and shows a number of examples here.