Substituting Color for Haptic Attributes in Conceptual Metaphors for Tangible Interaction Design

Studies in tangible interaction have investigated how physical object attributes can stand for abstract content (e.g. IMPORTANT IS HEAVY). A less expensive and more practical alternative to dynamically change, for example, the size, weight or temperature of tangibles, could be using color-to-abstract mappings. Grounded in embodied cognition theory, a number of color-for-haptic substitutions are derived (e.g. DARK COLORS ARE HEAVY). These substitutions are then tested for their effectiveness with 15 conceptual metaphors (e.g. IMPORTANT IS DARK COLOR). In four conditions (haptic, color, haptic-color congruence, haptic-color incongruence) 48 participants matched objects of different colors, sizes, weights or temperatures with abstract words. The results indicate that color can replace haptic attributes in metaphoric mappings and that designers need to explicitly design for color, because metaphor-incongruent colors can hamper the effectiveness of metaphorical mappings. The results also indicate that an embodied experiential view can circumvent arguing about specific colors with high-level symbolic meanings.