
What skeuomorphism is (and isn't) - sgdesign
http://sachagreif.com/what-skeuomorphism-is-and-isnt/
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majormajor
"It helps tell these apps apart (“Find My Friends? Oh, right, the one with
leather!”).

It makes the apps more approachable (“Hmm, this looks just like my real-world
address book, it can’t be much harder to use”)."

Honest question: are these two things really issues? I've just never
encountered the level of non-technical user that would be lost but for those
particular touches. And I know there's a huge amount of selection bias in
there, but I think usability/distinctiveness can be achieved _without_ kitschy
textures or creating your own set of UI elements.

If anyone has more links on it actually helping new users, I'd love to see
them. The reasons just sound like post-hoc rationalizations to me. Especially
because realistic/skeuomorphic/what-have-you skins have gone in and out of
fashion over the years and I don't recall complaints that, say, iTunes looked
less "just like" a CD player than the old System 7.5 CD player app.

(And honestly, in the few minutes I played with the Lion Address Book out of
curiosity, I felt like I was missing something big about how it worked. That
one in particular seems like a case of things getting more confusing because
it presents a physical metaphor that doesn't really fit the digital version.)

~~~
RickHull
> I've just never encountered the level of non-technical user that would be
> lost but for those particular touches.

They say that economics happens at the margins. In other words, changing the
price of a sandwich from $3.40 to $3.25 isn't going to make you buy 10% more
of them. But in the population of consumers, there is a chunk that are on the
margin that will be totally converted, and that results in a 10% volume
increase in aggregate.

Something similar may be going on here. Make a design tradeoff (using leather)
in order to get a 10% user benefit, even if 50% of your users get no benefit.

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tylerhowarth
I think this issue is beyond defining. Skeuomorphism has been generalized to
cover most designs that include faux textures or design elements.

When it comes to Apple's design decisions, they absolutely have no idea what
they are doing with all of these disgusting flourishes. see this article:
[http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670760/will-apples-tacky-
softwa...](http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670760/will-apples-tacky-software-
design-philosophy-cause-a-revolt)

~~~
sgdesign
That was a good article, thanks.

But I guess I'm giving Apple the benefit of the doubt: although I personally
agree that some of their designs are tacky and over the top, I trust them
enough to assume they have their reasons.

~~~
Ygg2
Interesting reading. If this quote from link above is true:

"Skeuomorphism is a catch-all term for when objects retain ornamental elements
of past, derivative iterations--elements that are no longer necessary to the
current objects’ functions."

Then Sacha Grief, might be wrong. The example he given, used blue leather and
white buttons and he derided the example as not skeuomorphism. But in that
example only a part of it was the ornament (i.e. blue leather). I could be
wrong but what does ornamental take into account? Whole thing or just a part?

I mean rest of his story does make sense, but it's still an invalid example.

EDIT: It might be a nitpick, but I like to know what is and isn't
skeuomorphic.

~~~
nchlswu
The quotation you refer to doesn't nullify Sacha's point. It says it's a
"catch-all term for when objects retain ornamental elements of the past."
Sacha says the blue leather texture example is NOT skeumorphic because the
textures did not exist in past iterations of the product, since there was no
original to begin with.

If I translate a physical object into a digital version and replicate
ornaments that add no function in the digital version (ie. a leather texture),
that's considered skeumorphic. On the other hand, if I apply a leather texture
to my UI for random app X, that's not skeumorphic.

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crazygringo
I think this distinction is important, just so people are using the same
vocabulary.

But genuine question: is there another word we can use which means semi-
photorealistic leather, stitching, physically textured, etc. interface?
Usually with all that being largely gratuitous?

In other words, if we're not bashing skeuomorphism, what is the name of the
thing we're meaning to bash instead? :)

~~~
melloclello
Baroque?

~~~
golden_apples
That's a good word for it.

There was a short-lived trend in design a few years back that used the term
”maximalism” to mean something similar - covering every surface, layering
metaphors on top of metaphors, mixing traditions from all over.

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mistercow
>Apple knows what they’re doing

They did, once upon a time. Look at the aesthetics of recent iterations of
iCal though, and you can see that they really, really don't anymore.

~~~
sgdesign
Honestly, I understand not agreeing with the direction they're going in, but
that doesn't mean they don't know what they're doing. Maybe we're just not the
target market for all these apps?

~~~
Steko
Bingo, all the piling on here is really just the chauvanism of hackerdom. Hey
I don't need this texture, ergo this texture is stupid and useless.

Meanwhile as the post points out, these textures and animations are important
comforts, cues and guides for many users, especially newer users.

~~~
kybernetikos
do you have a citation for that? I don't really believe that fake leather
makes an app more approachable or easier to use. Of course, if there are
usability studies that prove me wrong, I'm happy to revise my opinion.

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podperson
There are plenty of skeumorphic apps that users love. E.g. the Korg drum
machine app that looks and works like a Korg drum machine.

What people are actually objecting to is apps that have gratuitous visual
borrowings that do nothing but consume screen real estate and occupy storage
space. In most cases, Apple's "skeumorphic" apps don't even waste screen real
estate (if you rip all the textures out, they look like normal Cocoa/Touch
apps) so it's just a question of "do you the texture looks nice" (in my case:
no) and "is it worth the megabytes of junk you now have on your hard disk"
(definitely no if you answered "no" to the previous question).

Frankly, if Apple stripped the visuals to the bone in Mac OS X in the interest
of making the best use of the limited space on SSDs, I'd be very happy.

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melloclello
> It helps tell these apps apart

I would agree, variation is very important in this respect - however, this
skeuo-leather-morphic design is but one small niche in the set of all possible
variations. Have Apple exhausted their own potential? Is the only way for them
to further refine their software really for them to turn away from minimalism
and add more and more revolting kitsch?

If this is true, why does it have to be _this_ particular style of kitsch?

~~~
manmal
I don't remember Jobs praising minimalism, but rather beauty. It's all
throughout his biography, he was a big fan of beautiful, functional design. I
think skeuomorph interfaces are beautiful if done right - yes, they might be
more beautiful than functional, but what if Apple values beauty over
functionality? I remember reading about an Apple engineer working hard to get
rounded rectangles to draw in their early OS without affecting overall
performance, and Jobs pushing him further and further until it was done.
Rounded rectangles are so not functional.

~~~
rangibaby
Sure. I think Garageband, with it's skeuomorphic knobs and the like is a good
example of what you are talking about.

On the other hand, Lion's iCal is absolutely hideous. No beauty there.

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cormullion
In the 1990s, there was criticism of older Mac OS software because there was
no indication of the current application's name in the single menu bar. (This
is pre-MacOS X, which placed the application's name next to the Apple icon.)
In iOS today, there's similarly no indication of the current app. I think the
idea of the individual design for iOS apps is that it's easier to tell at a
glance which app you're in.

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ChelseaT
Here is a unique take on skeuomorphism - It mentions that if Apple doesn't
eventually steer away, younger users may feel a disconnection with iOS...

[http://blog.apptopia.com/discussing-mobile-design-
pt-1-apple...](http://blog.apptopia.com/discussing-mobile-design-pt-1-apple-
and-skeumorphism/)

Thoughts?

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camo
maybe skeuomorphism should be added to the list of "Shit apple fanatics say"

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFhjDX-DUew>

