The Interactive Metaphor. Interface’s functional and cognitive architecture The current research is conducted in a moment when the emergence of new formats in Communication Technologies fills a gap in an unpublished stage on the social, cultural and artistic practices. The information access and management are nowadays defined by a strong interconnection, which allows an information omni-directional dynamic flow. And as such, it contributes to the gestation of a global, social and cultural architecture. The electronic interface, whose formal and functional bases are provided by the computer scientists, artists and designers’ interdisciplinary labour, turns into a language on the basis that it establishes a dialogue between the user and the machine, using its own resources in order to guarantee an efficient communication, and remaining conditioned by periodical operability changes from its individual and social practice. From the image’s settlement on the current spheres of communication, and the close relation between image and language, it is possible to establish a study field on the visual nature inside the electronic interface, where the graphical metaphor plays an essential role as a vehicle in the association of ideas, and is directly implied on the interfaces’ applications optimization. This research aims to establish a frame from which enables us to study the viability of the initial hypothesis, which defends the use of the electronic interface metaphor as a necessary vehicle for the establishment of more effective cognitive flows, so that they provide a better comprehension of the interactive functionality practised in the system, allowing a more dynamic dialogue with the information. To such a purpose the work has been constructed in two interrelated parts: The first part establishes an eminently theoretical frame from where we approach a revision on the concepts of language, image and icon. From them, we study the graphical metaphor architecture and its definition, main axis of the interactive interface architecture. In this factorial decomposition process, the figure of the user is also analyzed under the double role of passive-active agent in the information consumption process. For this purpose, we provide a synergies map between this one and the received information, outlining the limits and the location of the designer’s competence. Finally, a retrospective tour on the interactive metaphor’s different applications is established up to the current moment, finding operative guidelines and forming this way a wide map on its electronic application, according to structural or semantic strategies. In the second part of the study, of a more practical basis, we develop some interfaces that use metaphorical vehicles in its conceptual architecture and navigation paths. From their interaction with their habitual users’ sample, we obtain conclusions that allow us to outline the possible work-related directions in the future field of the interactive interfaces design. In general terms, this thesis seeks to delimit the electronic interaction interface operative spectrum that is based on a metaphorical structure of navigation. For this purpose, we consider the graphical metaphor to be a fertile area from which we can project usability solutions, which precisely find in this metaphorical use of the image the suitable quality to communicate an idea in a more efficient way, or to project unique artistic applications, by establishing much more dynamic conceptual association relationships.