8 ms·

What skeuomorphism is (and isn't)

103 points by sgdesign 14y ago

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
crazygringo 14y ago
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? :)
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- _frog 14y ago
  Tacky works pretty well.
  - Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
    For the leather in Calendar yes but not for the linen effects which are subtle and relatively nice yet fall into the same category. I think most people are agreed that the issue with Calendar is more about it being bad rather than a specific design rationale or style.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- pirateking 14y ago
  Nostalgia.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    Nostalgia seems like it better describes skeuomorphism than fake-skeuomorphism. A notebook application that looks like a notebook is "nostalgic". Weather applications that look like my pants are not.
- melloclello 14y ago
  Baroque?
  - golden_apples 14y ago
    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.
  - kingsley_20 14y ago
    Baroque is characterised by the ornamentation of every detail. Which is why I suggest the term "ornamentation".
- gbog 14y ago
  Kitsch
- kingsley_20 14y ago
  Ornamentation?
- mbq 14y ago
  Pseudoskeuomorphism, easy.
tylerhowarth 14y ago
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-software-design-philosophy-cause-a-revolt http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670760/will-apples-tacky-softwa...
- sgdesign 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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.
    - crisnoble 14y ago
      From the article: Glass thermometer iPhone app: skeuomorphic. Wooden thermometer iPhone app: not skeuomorphic, because real thermometers do not use wood.
    - nchlswu 14y ago
      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.
mistercow 14y ago
>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 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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 14y ago
      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.
  - codeka 14y ago
    Who is the target market, though? I'd say the vast majority of new users of OS X are people coming from Windows, not people who have never used a computer their whole life. Does the leather texture really help those people?
    - Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
      Does it have to help or does it just have to be aesthetically pleasing? Obviously most people don't think it is, but that's a personal preference rather than a statement of fact. I think the linen backgrounds that are appearing in OS X and iOS are a case in point - they don't add anything practical (in theory I think they were meant to represent the bottom layer though that's been inconsistently used so it's questionable whether any real benefit is being gained) but broadly speaking I think people agree that the texture is nice and as a result people seem to be more positive about them.
ebf 14y ago
I think it is debatable as to whether or not Apple knows what they are doing. From http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670760/will-apples-tacky-software-design-philosophy-cause-a-revolt http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670760/will-apples-tacky-softwa... : "It’s visual masturbation," says one former senior UI designer at Apple who worked closely with Steve Jobs. "It’s like the designers are flexing their muscles to show you how good of a visual rendering they can do of a physical object. Who cares?" Inside Apple, tension has brewed for years over the issue. Apple iOS SVP Scott Forstall is said to push for skeuomorphic design, while industrial designer Jony Ive and other Apple higher-ups are said to oppose the direction. "You could tell who did the product based on how much glitz was in the UI," says one source intimately familiar with Apple’s design process. But before Forstall, it was Steve Jobs who encouraged the skeuomorphic approach, some say. "iCal’s leather-stitching was literally based on a texture in his Gulfstream jet," says the former senior UI designer. "There was lots of internal email among UI designers at Apple saying this was just embarrassing, just terrible." Perhaps the most infamous culprit of this design direction is Apple’s Game Center, the social-gaming app that’s dressed in a lacquered wood and green felt that lends it the feel of a casino. "Steve pushed very hard to have everything--the felt-cloth table, the game chips--look like they would in real life," says another former Apple designer. "Internally, a lot of people were shocked by the richness. Many think it’s gone too far."
majormajor 14y ago
"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 14y ago
  > 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.
- jarek 14y ago
  > are these two things really issues? Of course. Real people don't say "Calendar app? Oh, right, the one with the calendar sheet," or "Address book? Oh, right, the one with the people's contact info in it!". This is why we need on-screen leather.
- bergie 14y ago
  It makes the apps more approachable (“Hmm, this looks just like my real-world address book, it can’t be much harder to use”)." That was the argument behind Microsoft's acclaimed skeuomorphic Post-PC platform, Bob: http://www.bentuser.com/article.aspx?ID=327&page=3 http://www.bentuser.com/article.aspx?ID=327&page=3 http://www.bentuser.com/article.aspx?ID=327&page=4 http://www.bentuser.com/article.aspx?ID=327&page=4 iOS hasn't quite gone as far as introduce Clippy, but of course Siri could be taken to that direction...
melloclello 14y ago
> 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 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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.
  - melloclello 14y ago
    Rounded rectangles are totally functional if you consider that you're going for the most minimalist interface compatible with the human visual cortex. Sharp corners can cause all kinds of ringing artifacts in certain situations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_grid_illusion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_grid_illusion
camo 14y ago
maybe skeuomorphism should be added to the list of "Shit apple fanatics say" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFhjDX-DUew http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFhjDX-DUew
cormullion 14y ago
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.
podperson 14y ago
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.
ChelseaT 14y ago
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-and-skeumorphism/ http://blog.apptopia.com/discussing-mobile-design-pt-1-apple... Thoughts?

103 points by sgdesign 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

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? :)

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
_frog 14y ago
Tacky works pretty well.
- Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
  For the leather in Calendar yes but not for the linen effects which are subtle and relatively nice yet fall into the same category. I think most people are agreed that the issue with Calendar is more about it being bad rather than a specific design rationale or style.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
pirateking 14y ago
Nostalgia.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Nostalgia seems like it better describes skeuomorphism than fake-skeuomorphism. A notebook application that looks like a notebook is "nostalgic". Weather applications that look like my pants are not.
melloclello 14y ago
Baroque?
- golden_apples 14y ago
  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.
- kingsley_20 14y ago
  Baroque is characterised by the ornamentation of every detail. Which is why I suggest the term "ornamentation".
gbog 14y ago
Kitsch
kingsley_20 14y ago
Ornamentation?
mbq 14y ago
Pseudoskeuomorphism, easy.

tylerhowarth 14y ago

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-software-design-philosophy-cause-a-revolt http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670760/will-apples-tacky-softwa...

sgdesign 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.
  - crisnoble 14y ago
    From the article: Glass thermometer iPhone app: skeuomorphic. Wooden thermometer iPhone app: not skeuomorphic, because real thermometers do not use wood.
  - nchlswu 14y ago
    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.

mistercow 14y ago

>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 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    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.
- codeka 14y ago
  Who is the target market, though? I'd say the vast majority of new users of OS X are people coming from Windows, not people who have never used a computer their whole life. Does the leather texture really help those people?
  - Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
    Does it have to help or does it just have to be aesthetically pleasing? Obviously most people don't think it is, but that's a personal preference rather than a statement of fact. I think the linen backgrounds that are appearing in OS X and iOS are a case in point - they don't add anything practical (in theory I think they were meant to represent the bottom layer though that's been inconsistently used so it's questionable whether any real benefit is being gained) but broadly speaking I think people agree that the texture is nice and as a result people seem to be more positive about them.

ebf 14y ago

I think it is debatable as to whether or not Apple knows what they are doing. From http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670760/will-apples-tacky-software-design-philosophy-cause-a-revolt http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670760/will-apples-tacky-softwa... : "It’s visual masturbation," says one former senior UI designer at Apple who worked closely with Steve Jobs. "It’s like the designers are flexing their muscles to show you how good of a visual rendering they can do of a physical object. Who cares?" Inside Apple, tension has brewed for years over the issue. Apple iOS SVP Scott Forstall is said to push for skeuomorphic design, while industrial designer Jony Ive and other Apple higher-ups are said to oppose the direction. "You could tell who did the product based on how much glitz was in the UI," says one source intimately familiar with Apple’s design process. But before Forstall, it was Steve Jobs who encouraged the skeuomorphic approach, some say. "iCal’s leather-stitching was literally based on a texture in his Gulfstream jet," says the former senior UI designer. "There was lots of internal email among UI designers at Apple saying this was just embarrassing, just terrible." Perhaps the most infamous culprit of this design direction is Apple’s Game Center, the social-gaming app that’s dressed in a lacquered wood and green felt that lends it the feel of a casino. "Steve pushed very hard to have everything--the felt-cloth table, the game chips--look like they would in real life," says another former Apple designer. "Internally, a lot of people were shocked by the richness. Many think it’s gone too far."

majormajor 14y ago

"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 14y ago
> 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.
jarek 14y ago
> are these two things really issues? Of course. Real people don't say "Calendar app? Oh, right, the one with the calendar sheet," or "Address book? Oh, right, the one with the people's contact info in it!". This is why we need on-screen leather.
bergie 14y ago
It makes the apps more approachable (“Hmm, this looks just like my real-world address book, it can’t be much harder to use”)." That was the argument behind Microsoft's acclaimed skeuomorphic Post-PC platform, Bob: http://www.bentuser.com/article.aspx?ID=327&page=3 http://www.bentuser.com/article.aspx?ID=327&page=3 http://www.bentuser.com/article.aspx?ID=327&page=4 http://www.bentuser.com/article.aspx?ID=327&page=4 iOS hasn't quite gone as far as introduce Clippy, but of course Siri could be taken to that direction...

melloclello 14y ago

> 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 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.
- melloclello 14y ago
  Rounded rectangles are totally functional if you consider that you're going for the most minimalist interface compatible with the human visual cortex. Sharp corners can cause all kinds of ringing artifacts in certain situations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_grid_illusion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_grid_illusion

camo 14y ago

maybe skeuomorphism should be added to the list of "Shit apple fanatics say" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFhjDX-DUew http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFhjDX-DUew

cormullion 14y ago

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.

podperson 14y ago

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.

ChelseaT 14y ago

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-and-skeumorphism/ http://blog.apptopia.com/discussing-mobile-design-pt-1-apple... Thoughts?