# Prototyping Digital Social Spaces through Metaphor-Driven Design: Translating Spatial Concepts into an Interactive Social Simulation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02759 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.02759/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 7 of its 110 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 3 Oct 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03442/) (2023)
- [Social Simulacra: Creating Populated Prototypes for Social Computing Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.04024/) (2022)
- [LLM Social Simulations Are a Promising Research Method](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.02234/) (2025)
- [Y Social: an LLM-powered Social Media Digital Twin](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.00818/) (2024)
- [A Simulation System Towards Solving Societal-Scale Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13915/) (2024)
- [Reflexive Design for Fairness and Other Human Values in Formal Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.05084/) (2020)
- [Form-From: A Design Space of Social Media Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.05388/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Social media platforms are central to communication, yet their designs remain narrowly focused on engagement and scale. While researchers have proposed alternative visions for online spaces, these ideas are difficult to prototype within platform constraints. In this paper, we introduce a metaphor-driven system to help users imagine and explore new social media environments. The system translates users' metaphors into structured sets of platform features and generates interactive simulations populated with LLM-driven agents. To evaluate this approach, we conducted a study where participants created and interacted with simulated social media spaces. Our findings show that metaphors allow users to express distinct social expectations, and that perceived authenticity of the simulation depended on how well it captured dynamics like intimacy, participation, and temporal engagement. We conclude by discussing how metaphor-driven simulation can be a powerful design tool for prototyping alternative social architectures and expanding the design space for future social platforms.