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A modern office metaphor mania

Where’s the humanness in workplace interface metaphors?

Suchithra Sathiyamurthy
UX Collective
5 min readOct 16, 2024

To all the , this is a short story of your courage and grit, living through the endless mania of metaphors in the digital world, often twisting your senses between pixels and atoms.

A woman sitting at her desk in the office, with an box overflowing with mail strapped to her and a calendar tied to her neck
Base image: Unsplash

The workday had gotten busy for Riya, with a whirlwind of meetings and arduous conversations still ahead. Just when she dived into her next task, her manager slid the white nob on her chair, shaking her focus, and swerving her into a huddle.

‘Hi Riya, could we huddle?’ If you weren’t so tied up, we could’ve had a meeting.’

‘So we’re not meeting?’

‘Of course not. I’m just checking in with you quickly.’

Ah, the illusion of words, Riya thought.

‘By the way, Zen from sales is also joining us. He’s going to explain this new task that’s come up. Do make space, please.’

Riya stared at her calendar. Expectedly, the huddle from her manager left her with more work. Her eyes scanned for white space among the tightly staggered, coloured rectangles of her schedule. ‘When did calendars become paint by numbers? Thought they marked days and events rather than making my entire day an event,’ she murmured.

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Published in UX Collective

We believe designers are thinkers as much as they are makers. Curated stories on UX, Visual & Product Design. https://linktr.ee/uxc

Written by Suchithra Sathiyamurthy

Reflecting on design from the broad and the narrow | Product designer | Dublin | Views are my own

Responses (3)

What are your thoughts?

I hope there are more people like you who recognize this, bravo!

1

I absolutely enjoyed reading this! It’s not everyday I get to read something that challenges the status quo the way you did!

My takeaway from this has been something that I’ve been trying to reinforce in my head time and again. That is, to…

This piece captures the essence of the modern workplace beautifully! The metaphor of "office warriors" navigating the digital landscape really resonates. It’s a poignant reminder of how important it is to maintain our human connections amidst the…