Spatial metaphors and the design of everyday things

People use space to think about a variety of non-spatial concepts like time, number, and emotional valence. These spatial metaphors can be used to inform the design of user interfaces, digital and otherwise, in which many of these same concepts are visualized in space. Traditionally, researchers have relied on patterns in language to discover habits of metaphorical thinking. Here we argue that researchers and designers must look beyond language for evidence of spatial metaphors, many of which remain unspoken despite their pervasive effects on people’s preferences, memories, and actions. We propose a simple principle for predicting spatial metaphors from the structure of people’s experiences, whether those experiences are linguistic, cultural, or bodily. By leveraging the latent metaphorical structure of people’s minds, we can design interfaces that help people think.