5 ms·
Skeuomorphism has been interpreted two ways - as decorative elements (leather stitching), and in functionality that attempts to emulate a real world object (pag
by feverishaaron 14y ago
Skeuomorphism has been interpreted two ways - as decorative elements (leather stitching), and in functionality that attempts to emulate a real world object (page flipping in an e-book).
The former is just a matter of aesthetic preference. Where skeuomorphism gets dangerous is in the latter case.
A perfect example is the horrible address book in OS X. It looks like a book, and therefore the user expects it to function like a book. Yet, it doesn't. It's this area of interaction design that has run afoul at Apple.
- eridius 14y agoYou give "page flipping in an e-book" as an example of dangerous skeuomorphism, but then cite Address Book as why it's bad. I'm a bit confused. I get why you don't like Address Book, but do you really think page flipping in an e-reader is bad too? If so, why do you think that?
- MetricMike 14y agoThe dichotomy is what's dangerous. Address Book looks like an book, so I'll try to interact with it like that. When that doesn't work, I get confused, angry, and it's generally a "failure" from a UX point of view. Neither form of skeuomorphism is inherently bad, but it's easier to shoot yourself in the foot and ruin the UX when you move from decorative to functional.
- eridius 14y agoYes, I get the complaints about Address Book. But "page flipping in an e-book" is either really poorly written, or was not referring to Address Book to begin with, since Address Book is not an e-book. Hence my question.
- feverishaaron 14y agoIndeed, they were intended to be separate examples.
- bad_user 14y agoProblem with Adress Book is that it doesn't do page flipping, although it looks like a regular book.
- eridius 14y agoYes, I get why people don't like Address Book. But it's not an e-book or e-reader, so "page flipping in an e-book" is referring to something else (presumably, iBooks).
- Firehed 14y agoThe point was that iBooks looks and behaves like a book, so it works even if you consider it distasteful; Address Book looks like one but behaves completely differently, leaving the user confused why this "object" doesn't work.
- panacea 14y agoBecause pages in an e-reader are not physical sheets bound together that require flipping over before you can see the page below. If you can render the next page faster, then why fake a 'page turn' that takes time to animate. It's the very definition of skeuomorphism.
- eridius 14y agoThe speed at which you can present text to the reader is not the end-all, be-all of the reading experience. In fact, the logical conclusion, of having zero transition whatsoever, is actually a pretty terrible experience. Why do you think people use smooth scrolling on their OS? Transitions are very valuable in producing a good user experience, whether it's a simple horizontal slide as the Kindle iOS app uses by default, or a page turn animation as iBooks uses by default. And if your argument is purely about the speed of the animation, there is nothing about a page turn that inherently requires it be slower than a horizontal slide. Speaking personally, the iBooks page curl is one of my favorite features of any iOS app, period.
- RShiki 14y agoI don't know when it has been introduced, or even if it was always there and I didn't notice, but iBooks also supports continuous vertical scrolling and it IS much faster than looking at an animation that shows a page turn or a slide. The default mode, "page turn" doesn't make any sense. When I scroll through an ebook through the continuous scrolling, the text appears INSTANTLY, without a perceptible delay and since it's continuous scrolling, you don't go from a page to another, but you're always "in between". The concept of a "page" 1, "page 2", "page" 3 itself is no more. It's not a physical book, it doesn't need pages.
- snowwrestler 14y agoBy your latter definition, inertial scrolling with snap-back is skeuomorphic, and that is universally praised (and copied).