The field of music production does seem to be a bit of a magnet for this skeuomorphic UI business. Having people coming from physical equipment is part of it, b

The field of music production does seem to be a bit of a magnet for this skeuomorphic UI business. Having people coming from physical equipment is part of it, but there is an aesthetic factor as well, which relates to the kind of people musicians tend to be. However, there is a new generation of UIs appearing in music production software, and the German company Native-Instruments seems to be playing a big part in it. To contrast with the example of Ultrabeat from the article, consider NI's drum sampler 'Battery'[1] which arranges the same controls (plus some more) in a much more visually approachable manner, using strong, clean lines, and tabs to navigate between less-used controls. Similarly consider their synth 'Massive'[2], which also employs clean lines and visual simplicity, and employs a system of colour-coding and numbering to achieve what Reason does with it's cable spaghetti approach. Also, I find the Windows 7 Phone UI to be really bland. It is about as far as you can go in the opposite direction from a UI which has some sense of real-world objects and forms, and I think somewhere in the middle would be more desirable. [1] http://alex.leonard.ie/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/native-instruments-battery3.jpg http://alex.leonard.ie/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/native-ins... [2] http://static.kvraudio.com/i/b/massive.jpg http://static.kvraudio.com/i/b/massive.jpg