Skeuomorphism

by speednoise • 14 years ago

260 101 14 years ago

Groxx• 14 years ago

Evidently built by someone with a skeued sense of humor.

See to me, some of these examples aren't skeuomorphic. This for example, I've never seen a leather item in meat-space with aluminum buttons. Or a big platic/glass button.

http://skeu.it/post/29492973628/in-space-no-one-can-see-you-...

Smudge6• 14 years ago

I think that's part of the point here. The visual metaphor of leather doesn't make much sense, and is only there as an ornament because it (apparently) looks attractive. Why include the leather at all, if it's not a helpful metaphor for using the product?

siglesias2• 14 years ago

Devil's advocate: leather, or any skin for that matter, creates a distinctiveness to the app that serves as kind of a "key" to your mental model of how it works and what it's for.

That key can be used in various incarnations of your app's UI, on the web, across platforms, or even in system services (like notifications or Siri's sheets) to let the user quickly make the association with your app.

wvenable5• 14 years ago

Design?

Some of these are actually pretty attractive and don't appear to interfere with the usage of the app. Others aren't so attractive and many more are hard to use.

Why is a texture automatically worse than a solid colored background?

nchlswu• 14 years ago

I agree. A poorly or out of context metaphor hardly qualifies as skeumorphic to me. there are still some good examples of skeumorphism gone wrong, but it's not the gist of the whole blog

ben1040• 14 years ago

>This for example, I've never seen a leather item in meat-space with aluminum buttons.

The leather and metal buttons remind me of an old camera (or one such as a Leica with a timeless design). As an example: http://i.imgur.com/EfGW5.jpg

I feel like that UI would go just fine with a camera or photo-related app.

But it totally doesn't work at all for something that I'm assuming is more along the lines of a magic 8-ball.

fleitz• 14 years ago

But leather and metal are helpful on a camera, as is the cross hatch on the lens.

On an iPhone app cross hatching does not help you grip the control.

The leather on an iPhone app doesn't help protect against scratches or provide a superior gripping surface to polished aluminium.

If you like the idea that good design is as little design as possible then a Leica style app design isn't as little design as possible. In just the same way that a moleskin notepad app isn't helpful, nor is comic sans as a font choice despite that it approximates hand printed letters. Maybe if they really want to make the full experience the 'pen' you use to write letters can run out of ink and then you have to shake the iphone to get more ink.

Design should help the user accomplish tasks not get upvotes on dribble.

Smudge6• 14 years ago

My designer friend and I are laughing so hard at this that we're crying.

In all seriousness, this is the perfect tool for showing people how skeumorphism can be taken too far. I actually like many of these designs, but the point is that the metaphors don't actually help, and sometimes only add to the confusion. (Denim weather app? Pea coat button loops for on/off switches?)

RandallBrown• 14 years ago

In all fairness, lots of these are just people on Dribbble flexing their photoshop muscles.

The peacoat on off switch wouldn't be great in your app (unless you're selling peacoats or something) but it still looks kinda cool.

MartinCron3• 14 years ago

The peacoat on/off switch is causing a lot of cognitive dissonance in me right now. It's so pointless, but so adorable. I want to make a peacoat-related app just to have an excuse to use it.

shinratdr• 14 years ago

So skeuomorphism is now anything besides Windows Phone style "pure digital"? Shiny = glass, black texture = leather, blue texture = denim, etc? That's going to be really, really boring.

I don't know why texture is such a bad thing. Of course you can overdo it like anything, but personally I prefer Reeder with a light paper-pulp backing texture instead of a plain light peach background.

For example, what is so bad about this?

http://skeu.it/image/24908403424

It almost feels like people are calling it skeuomorphic so that's how they expect the developer to feel about it. I don't think regular people look at these as real world metaphors, expecting them to function as they do in real life. That feels to me like a theoretical user posed by developers that doesn't actually exist.

In reality, people see it for what it is. Design flair. Whether or not it's unnecessary or helps the user with the app is missing the point entirely. Design that's pleasing to the eye shouldn't get in the way and cause problems, but it doesn't have to accelerate your use of the service to be positive overall.

Aero Glass is a great example. It gets mixed opinions, but I think we can all agree that it's far better than Luna and IE actually looks pretty great with it. There is no skeuomorphic benefit to having glass everywhere. It's simply design flair. With that in mind, I still prefer it.

Smudge6• 14 years ago

I agree. This site seems to call-out anything with a certain kind of texture as "skeumorphic," and many of the examples are quite attractive on their own.

But I think you're pigeonholing it into a certain school of design. I don't see it calling out just any texture -- only a certain range commonly found in software these days (especially on iOS). I'm talking about denim, paper, stone, leather, and other rough, durable surfaces that remind us of certain tactile sensations. (I'd also add a category for shiny, glossy, perhaps candy-like textures.) It certainly makes sense for these kinds of textures to appear most commonly on touch devices, but as designers it's good to understand when we're being a bit derivative.

If anything, skeu.it will help me be more self-aware.

wvenable5• 14 years ago

> I'm talking about denim, paper, stone, leather...

Add glass, wood, and brick and that's probably every common surface texture that humans interact with daily. Is it really any surprise that these are used over and over? You claim it's derivative but maybe it's just common.

ajross• 14 years ago

The "leather" tagged posts on the front page are more than "black texture". Both of them feature "thread stitching" along the borders. I thought these were the worst of the bunch, actually.

I agree that the "Skeumorphism must die" meme has gotten out of hand. But the examples on this site are actually pretty well justified AFAICT.

mikeryan• 14 years ago

Both of them feature "thread stitching" along the borders

It may be overused and bad taste but "thread stitching" is not in itself Skeumorphic design which is I believe the GP's point. A skeuomorph /ˈskjuːəmɔrf/ skew-ə-morf, or skeuomorphism (Greek: skeuos—vessel or tool, morphe—shape),[1] is a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues to a structure that was necessary in the original

A calendar app which looks like a desktop calendar is skeumorphic, a notepad app which looks like an actual notepad or a media player which looks like a tape player are the same. A weather app with a jean texture and a zipper may be ugly, but its not skeumorphic. The examples on this site may be examples of poor design but they are not, necessarily examples of poor skeumorphic design.

joethompson• 14 years ago

> For example, what is so bad about this? http://skeu.it/image/24908403424

Putting in a ruled notebook texture and not lining up the text makes it look a little silly.

majormajor• 14 years ago

That linked one is inoffensive though still a bit goofy IMO: we've got lined paper, but the text on it completely disregards the lines, and the rope/metal cord hanging the paper doesn't look right depth-wise. And glass + lined notepaper is a weird combo in general. :)

But I agree with your take that in a case like that it's merely a stylistic choice (some of the other examples, though...). The interesting thing to me is the cyclical aspect: skins seemed to have died down in popularity, at least among the geek crowd, for the past decade. Apple's brushed metal stuff was largely derided, Luna got toned down to Aero Glass, Aqua got toned down to what it is today, "skinnable" became less and less a bullet point for apps (ah, for the good ol' days of Sonique and Audion...). It remained on the web, since there's no good "native" equivalent like for desktop apps, though even there Bootstrap was a move away. Then it exploded again, driven by iOS and an increase in single-page web apps. I have to wonder if it's due to an influx of new designers and developers who are starting on iOS or the web and missed the first go-round. Ultimately I suspect that many of the more extreme examples we see today will end up massively toned down, along the lines of Mac OS X 10.0's Aqua vs today's. I.e., linen/denim/leather/etc are today's pinstripes and brushed metal.

notatoad• 14 years ago

>For example, what is so bad about this?http://skeu.it/image/24908403424

from a usability standpoint, absolutely nothing. from an aesthetic standpoint, it is tacky as hell. They may as well have wrapped their login form with faux-fur texture leopard print. You're right, it is merely a stylistic choice and it isn't going to confuse the users. That doesn't make it good.

awakeasleep• 14 years ago

So you would say it violates the Universal and Objective standards of good taste?

mbq• 14 years ago

What is wrong? Mainly the fact that those have nothing to do with skeuomorphism, it is only pointless bloat. Those designs have nothing to do with real world metaphors, they just shout "I can use cool textures too!"

And it is not new; the first weave of this epidemy stroked Windows somewhere around Win98 when average developers, inspired by a few actual skeumorphic designs, have learned how to use non-rectangular visibility regions and all this crappy ~1MB shareware become ~10MB (because of textures) crappier (because author had spent most time on "design") shareware that was antiskeuomorphic because it looked/behaved neither "real" nor like a Windows application. Both Luna and then Aero were nice enough to make people appreciate consistency and refocus on function, while the madness moved to iStuff (ok, Android too, but thank heavens considerably less).

hcarvalhoalves3• 14 years ago

    For example, what is so bad about this?
    http://skeu.it/image/24908403424

Because it reproduces a hypothetical real-world object, that not only doesn't make any sense (what is a sheet of paper hanging from a glass panel anyway?), but doesn't add any meaning to what this interface is supposed to do?

You can use skeumorphism where it makes sense. The problem is that login form has no analog in real-life, so in this one designer just went crazy for the sake of it.

EDIT: Yay, let's downvote.

fusiongyro• 14 years ago

Have an upvote.

I found myself giggling at this one along with all the other ones with things that make no sense like leather buttons and switches, and then I started to wonder: is it possible that the designers making this nonsense are actually representing an aesthetic totally decoupled from actual usability? In fact, let me get ageist here for a second—could it be that the designers making this nonsense are actually too young to have ever seen or used the real-world objects these skeumorphic interfaces are imitating?

I don't know about you, but I found some of my rage dissipated when I started to consider this just fashionable design. Yes, in a perfect world Apple would make appropriate (i.e. less) use of skeumorphism and therefore we wouldn't be seeing these kinds of ridiculous excesses from young designers, but something has to be the fad, and right now this seems to be it.

gurkendoktor2• 14 years ago

> The problem is that login form has no analog in real-life, so in this one designer just went crazy for the sake of it.

That is not a problem. A problem is: "it is hard to use", "it uses a lot of bandwidth", "people dislike it in A/B testing and buy less".

recoiledsnake• 14 years ago

>So skeuomorphism is now anything besides Windows Phone style "pure digital"? Shiny = glass, black texture = leather, blue texture = denim, etc? That's going to be really, really boring

How is Metro really really boring? Have you used WP beyond seeing screenshots?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=locNEna0of4&feature=plcp.

If you're really interested in the design philosophy , here's some analysis of Metro's alternative approach which mainly goes by the 'authentically digital', 'intentionally 2d' and 'content before chrome' philosophies.

http://www.riagenic.com/archives/487

http://www.riagenic.com/archives/493

http://www.riagenic.com/archives/526

You can have plenty of design flair in Metro. In fact, you can get skeumorphic! http://www.silverlightshow.net/Storage/Users/chiara/cabinet_...

>Aero Glass is a great example

Aero Glass is just barely skeumorphic, it mostly stays out of the way except for window borders. Other skeumorphic designs are much more in your face and some affect usability because it's not clear what the controls are and how to interact with them.

bpatrianakos• 14 years ago

In defense of your parent I think you misunderstood what he's saying is boring. What I took it to mean was that if you write off everything remotely skeuomorphic, textured, etc. and only leave 2D Windows Phone style pure digital design then that becomes boring. It's not boring because it's WP-digital style but because after a while that style of design will become as boring and played out as skeuomorphic design. Windows Phone and Windows 8 are actually really nice looking and that's coming from a guy who loves Apple's design sensibilities and have hated Windows' design up until Windows Phone and Win8 (with 7 having some redeeming qualities to it).

I actually think Aero Glass is quite skeuomorphic. It's literally a window. And for me it definitely does get in the way. The way the shadows and colors change behind the glass is distracting, it's often hard to tell what window is active, and I always get distracted by the taskbar because suddenly one of the icons will flash except the flash isn't a real instance of an app trying to alert me but a false alarm caused by my mouse getting too near it or, again, another window moving just the wrong way as to make the taskbar glass react even though nothing relevant is going on there for me to look at.

I don't want to start a flame war over Apple UI v. Windows at all. What I'm saying is that the parent has a point. I'm also saying Aero Glass isn't for everyone. There are lots of people like me who have the same problems with it and we're not imagining it and no, we're not using it wrong. It's just now we are and it doesn't mean you're wrong for liking it just as much as it doesn't mean we're wrong for disliking it.

The larger point I want to make beyond all that is that design flair matters. It's not superfluous at all. A lot of people like to talk about design flair like its a gimmick and take a purist view of design where it's only about usability. Usability is most important but design flair can take an interface with perfect usability to the next level. It's what gives apps credibility. It makes the experience enjoyable and it's what makes people love their apps. Any trend taken too far can become exhausting and awful to look at though and I think we're starting to see this with skeuomorphic design. It's sad because I loved it until some people butchered it. It's Web 2.0 all over again and the "pure digital" style will eventually fall victim to overuse too eventually.

I think this site is funny but it's meant to be taken with a grain of salt. Some of those designs really are nice but it's still fun to poke some fun at them nonetheless.

snogglethorpe• 14 years ago

> So skeuomorphism is now anything besides Windows Phone style "pure digital"? ... I don't know why texture is such a bad thing. Of course you can overdo it like anything, ...

Here's a key to interpreting the internet (and, well, all of society really, but the internet is like normal society on speed):

(1) People love to whine.

(2) People love to feel that they're on the cusp of a trend.

(3) People love to repeat what <somebody smart> said, because that makes them feel smart too -- but often don't really understand the basis of <somebody smart>'s statement (details matter!).

(4) People like black-and-white, crisp, clear-cut dogma; details and shades of grey are confusing and annoying. Whoooo, slogans!

Apparently, for whatever reason, some people have decided that so-called "skeuomorphism" is so-misguided, so-yesterday, so-OMG-ARE-YOU-STILL-DOING-THAT?!1? No doubt there is a kernel of truth behind this, but it's also probably completely swamped by the resulting noise...

Anyway, right.

Ygg2• 14 years ago

Except that when it comes to usability, using skeuomorphism tends to confuse user (note that it happens in some cases), because it implies that something will behave in a certain way like a real world counterpart, while that piece of interface might not.

I liken this stance of skeuomorphism to Douglas Crockford's stance on JSLint. To parahprase him "if there are two ways to do something and one of them can be a terrible source of conusion, use the other". This was originally meant for programming but it can apply as well to designing interfaces. So using skeuomorphism isn't immediately bad but it's a red flag, like saying if(a=b) in C.

cmelbye• 14 years ago

I completely agree, I'm getting a little tired of the whining about the 's'-word. For example, on the blog it shows the letter from Square with a paper background. What are we supposed to do instead of something like that? Blocks of solid color for everything, like you said?

hcarvalhoalves3• 14 years ago

It's not a letter, it's an email. That's the whole point.

lovskogen2• 14 years ago

No, Windows Metro just happens to not be skeuomorphic.

dm82• 14 years ago

As a designer, I couldn't agree more. Skeuomorphism can be great if done right. Nowadays visual designers (who are wannabee UX folks) think any sexy texture (leather patterns) can increase usability of an app. Even startup founders think the same. They don't realize design is not the shiny new coat of paint, design is how it works. In fact if your users think "it works fine", it means you've done great job. Your objective is not to hear "wow it has sexy design".

wvenable5• 14 years ago

I've been a software developer for many years and sexy design sells. For good or bad, that's the way it is.

dm82• 14 years ago

Somewhat agree. Dropbox didn't sell because it had shiny icons for folders or sexy web interface. It sold because it provided immense value and it just worked. Same can be said about Google, YouTube, Microsoft Word etc. None of them had sexy design to start with but they simply worked and provided great value to end-users.

adsr2• 14 years ago

From a usability standpoint yes, but there are more to it than that. If a purely aesthetic design choice enhance sales or just tailor to the target customers taste it can it self be seen as providing a function.

believeUme• 14 years ago

Skeu is saccharine, and that's why it sucks. Mouthful of gloss. Yuck.

clarky07• 14 years ago

I don't understand all the hate for skeuomorphism lately. Who cares if the todo app uses a design that makes it feel like a leather bound paper notebook. The point of design is to make something functional and beautiful. As long as it doesn't actively make the functionality worse, and some people like they way it looks, what is the problem?

MartinCron3• 14 years ago

and some people like they way it looks

The bar that I use for complaining about something is if I like the way it looks.

FuzzyDunlop• 14 years ago

I see the current skeuomorphism trend, in a way, as cargo-culting. People saw some questionable, but not entirely dreadful uses of it (basically Apple's effort) and thought, "yeah that looks good! I'm going to give my app an awesome real life texture!"

Take the denim weather app design for example.

To what extent does a denim effect, that one would associate primarily with jeans, have anything to do with the weather? Did the designer think to question that, or was it just a case of mind-bogglingly detailed texture being the in thing?

I mean, if you can't come up with a reason for that particular choice of visual metaphor other than "it looks good", then was it really the right choice?

On a side note, I dislike the usage of this in native app design. You'd get those ridiculous apps in Windows XP with bonkers custom UIs, including Safari and Quicktime, for that matter. Now apps in OSX are skinned in odd ways (in Address Book's case, detrimentally so) and Windows 8 appears to be aiming for a consistent look and feel.

wvenable5• 14 years ago

A todo app uses a design that makes it feel like a leather bound paper notebook is skeuomorphism. A weather application is with a denim texture is just a weather app with a denim texture. It could just as easily have a squiggly line texture or have a solid purple neon background. It might be ugly and stupid but that doesn't make it skeuomorphism.

adsr2• 14 years ago

I agree, it seems to be the kind of value you can subscribe to in order to advertise your sophistication to the world. The irony is that the idea is not original so the effect is the opposite, instead of signaling sophistication it signals that you want to appear to be sophisticated and are someone who knows a lot about design.

tb3037• 14 years ago

Hey all. I'm the curator (punch me in the feelings for saying that) of Skeu.it.

Thanks for the support!

I'm enjoying the debate here and won't get too much into it. For those arguing what is and isn't skeuomorphism, you're missing the point of the showcase.

Skeu.it, as specified on the masthead, celebrates arbitrary and gratuitous user interface decisions. Specifically, this means the misappropriation of visual artifacts designed for evoking familiarity in both form and function.

So yes, in my joyfully entitled opinion, using a big piece of frosted glass, with paper hanging from a rope, with magic buttons that somehow exist on lined paper, is a foolish design choice. Really, I wouldn't even call it a design choice, I'd say it's more just a collection of photoshop tutorials masquerading as an interface. Unnecessary skeu is the 2012+ version of the House Industries' "Crackhouse" typeface (http://www.houseind.com/fonts/crackhouse) appearing on every website and flyer 10 years ago. It's a classic, recognizable typeface...but stare at that for a moment, think back to how it didn't really make sense to announce free puppies or a car wash in deconstructed type, and let the understanding wash over you. Mmm, delicious understanding.

I have no hate towards skeu ("skeuomorphism must die" is silly) at all. In fact, I defend it:

http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-advantages-of-skeuomorphic... (from last year, a bit outdated)

Thanks again, and please send any good candidates my way (@303, @skeuit) for skeu.it!

Edit: Proper capitalization, the official end of my majuscular laziness.

gbog2• 14 years ago

Agree with your fight, thanks for carving this site about gratuitous user interface decisions, really. However, I am puzzled that you don't apply this to your writing and use proper capitalization.

tb3037• 14 years ago

Caught! I've been chastised for this laziness too many times. It ends now. Thanks!

DevinDawson• 14 years ago

With a username like that, I want to see an analysis of Rebirth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReBirth_RB-338

wwweston• 14 years ago

Good - the skeu on Rebirth helps orient people on what they're using: a virtual re-creation of a piece of hardware.

Bad - screen-rendered knobs are awkward to work with using pointer oriented input (mouse, touch pad/screen, stylus).

malkia• 14 years ago

Kitsch UI 4tw!

bluthru2• 14 years ago

If skeuomorphism didn't have a name, I bet no one would give a shit.

qq66• 14 years ago

Haha, completely true. It also helps that the name is kinda fun. There were a lot of nerds messing around with XMLHttpRequest back in the day, but it got a lot cooler when Adaptive Path christened it "AJAX."

gosub• 14 years ago

Like god?

commieneko• 14 years ago

It has a name because it's been an issue in technology for thousands of years. I first heard the term back in the 1970s when I was in college. Popped up all the time in architecture, engineering, and art history classes. By the late 1970s I was even hearing it used in discussions about software. If you don't understand how skeuomorphism works and effects design, you won't be very good at it.

simba-hiiipower• 14 years ago

best line: FUCK USABILITY WE HIRED A 3D MODELER AND WE’RE GOING TO GET OUR MONEY’S WORTH!

http://skeu.it/post/28492549355/crysonic

tsahyt2• 14 years ago

That thing is an audio plugin for music production. That sort of UI is what many producers want, because they want it to resemble the actual hardware they had two decades ago. Whether this thing was an actual product or not doesn't make a difference.

nileshk2• 14 years ago

The audio plugin example is typical because the vast majority of music production software exhibits a great deal of skeuomorphism. I personally don't like this because it increases the cognitive load in trying to figure out an interface, and I don't feel like it helps make things more intuitive than a non-skeuomorphic interface -- rather the opposite, it becomes more confusing.

This is one of the reasons I like Ableton Live ( http://www.ableton.com/suite-8 ): it has a simple, consistent user interface elements and the entire user interface happens to be vector based. Not only is it easy to navigate and understand, but the fact that it is vector based allows it to have a resolution-independent interface that can be zoomed in/out. Which addresses another problem with music production software: they tend to use tiny fonts and other UI elements which makes it hard to read when used with a high-PPI monitor and/or when the monitor is far enough away from the user (which seems to often be case in many studio setups). And once you've done a highly graphical skeuomorphic interface that uses lots of bitmaps, scaling doesn't always happen smoothly.

On the other hand, many people like skeuomorphic interfaces when they've had past experience with actual audio hardware. Reason ( http://www.propellerheads.se/products/reason/ ) is one such example where the interface is so skeuomorphic that is often considered a hardware simulator. People who have past experience with such hardware often love Reason because they are able to draw upon past experience to understand the interface. I suppose in this case, this is a very appropriate use of skeuomorphism.

People like me who don't have experience with such hardware aren't necessarily going to appreciate this, though some people will enjoy it even without past experience with hardware because some people simply enjoy visually appealing graphical interfaces. So it's a tough call which group of people is in the majority and who you want to cater to. Personally I like music/audio software to focus on it's core task of being a music creation tool, and less on being graphically impressive; but that's just me.

a45l983• 14 years ago

The other thing to consider is that audio processing is resource intensive. Many times you need to run many things at once and performance suffers.

Guess what else is resource intensive? Graphics. So everytime you have gratuitous graphics (e.g. a guitar plug-in that has one or two controls but goes to ridiculous lengths to reproduce a graphical image of, say, a guitar pedal), it takes away some of your resources.

I think you're right though. The interface is aimed at people who are used to looking at gear. That is the intended audience. They wanted to sell to the same people who were buying physical gear. Unfortunately it alienates anyone who understands how to actually use a computer beyond pointing and clicking or keyboard shortcuts.

I mentioned it in another comment in this thread, but if you want to see how things could be done in a "UNIX way", check out snd from the guys at Stanford CCRMA. It has a long history, longer than Ableton, probably as old as Sound Designer, the precursor to Pro Tools, though I'd have to check the dates. These guys clearly "get it". This is how computers and audio should intersect.

But, functionally, it's not a substitute for MOTU, Ableton or Digidesign, unfortunately.

nileshk2• 14 years ago

https://ccrma.stanford.edu/software/snd/snd/snd.html

"Snd is a sound editor modelled loosely after Emacs"

As an Emacs user, I am very much intrigued and will have to try this out. Thanks!

brendanobrien• 14 years ago

If you're still complaining about this, I'm here to tell you to move on.

adjwilli• 14 years ago

This is pretty awesome, but I wish they had called "Skeu You" instead.

tb3037• 14 years ago

I considered that, but decided the pun was more about my own disappointment than aggression.

hakaaak• 14 years ago

I think the main point being made is that the design shouldn't be distracting unless that is the point of the design. For login forms to be hanging from keys, and paper to be hanging from bolted glass panels is nonsense, and a distraction. Unfortunately what different people find appealing, others find distracting, but that's what usage metrics and testing are for- to help determine what does and what doesn't work.

Evbn• 14 years ago

Updated title no longer matches the content of skeu.it, which displays extreme skeu, not just skeu in general or quintessential examples of skeu.

Also, skeu.it is really about textures and fail skeu, not actual skeumorphism, which is about retaining obsolete details from a previous form, not just pleasing textured imagery.

egypturnash2• 14 years ago

Remember when you were 4 or so? And you had a "busy box"? Just a bunch of levers to move, buttons to push, dials to turn?

A well-done skeuomorphic interface, I submit, can be a busy box for grownups. What's wrong with having a few things in your life that partake of both "toy" and "tool"?

bthomas• 14 years ago

Do you have an example in mind?

egypturnash2• 14 years ago

Well, here's a post on the blog under discussion of a brightly-colored UI that definitely has a "busy box" vibe: http://skeu.it/post/28492549355/crysonic

(A lot of music software has this ultra-skeumorphic vibe. I guess to appeal to luddite musicians? Or just because it's fun to do. Maybe both.)

A lot of the skins from Audion ( http://panic.com/audion/index.html ) had a busy box/toy kind of vibe too, though the animation was pretty limited: http://panic.com/audion/gallery/previews/panman.jpg http://panic.com/audion/gallery/previews/contragrav.jpg - the better ones, for me, had this kind of "here's a cool vinyl toy for your desk, except it's virtual, and plays music".

tsahyt2• 14 years ago

I'm going to go against what seems to be the opinion of lots of designers and bloggers these days and say: I actually like skeuomorphism, if it's well executed.

EDIT: I'm talking about visuals now. How it affects usability is part of "well executed".

mbesto• 14 years ago

This reminds me of one of the first biggest lessons I've learned about the web - make it better than reality. Sadly, Jakob Nielsen found this out in 1998 [1] and we still can't get past it.

> It is painful to use the Web, so we need to reward users: give them something new and better that they didn't get before.

[1] http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980308.html

its_so_on• 14 years ago

I personally hate recognizing anything. If you think about it, even distinct text characters one next to each other are a skeumorphism from movable type.

Obviously the only correct interface is a simple vertical list where hovering over invisible areas of the screen reads you out loud an option and then clicks it. Actually why read it out loud at all, a skeumorphism from interacting with a person.

The only correct interface is a blank screen representing state with groups of pixels that turn off and on without any skeumorphism, but simply representing the state the program is in. Like the LED light showing whether your monitor is off or on, but 1280x1024 of them.

anything other than that is just art monkey fluff, designers butting into electronics where they don't belong.

a good rule of thumb is: if you recognize what's going on instead of having to decode it, you are dealing with bullshit overpriced overdesigned fluff.

thomasfl• 14 years ago

LOL "COME ON DOWN THE THE SKEU WAREHOUSE! WE’VE GOT LINEN! WE’VE GOT WOOD!" http://dribbble.com/shots/662571-Mo-Tab-bars?list=following

lovskogen2• 14 years ago

I wonder if skeuomorphic designs will be looked back at and be viewed like we now view the interfaces from the 90s, with huge amounts of bevel and emboss, shadows and gradients.

tb3037• 14 years ago

I believe this will be likely. KPT FTW!

kbutler• 14 years ago

Skeumorphism is including or retaining historical design elements for now non-functional purposes.

The author asserts that Microsoft's Metro design moves away from it, but his screenshot of Metro shows several instances:

- a paper shopping bag icon - MSFT stock symbol - icon of analog alarm clock with bells - gear icon for control panel - manilla folder icon for windows explorer

And does anyone else cringe at the HTML slipping through on AT&T?

The simple fact is that building on previous experience is useful. Anachronistic visual remnants of previous technology can lend familiarity to a new interface, reducing learning curve and increasing acceptance (e.g., rivets on denim jeans).

Sometimes designers go even further and purposely introduce even more skeumorphic elements, going for a "retro" feel.

Some people like it, some people don't. It isn't always done well, and it isn't always done badly.

tb3037• 14 years ago

If the link went to the Fast Company article, your comment would make much more sense!

scott_meade• 14 years ago

The anti-skeuomorphism crusade is more distracting than the designs it calls out. If I were a designer and if I had any influence, I'd add some gratuitous skeu-ness to a design just to attempt to calm the skeuphobia sweeping the design world.

vail130• 14 years ago

Real quick go at it:

http://jsbin.com/edoyoc/4/

Skeuomorphism

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