3 ms·

Did it though? Most people young today probably never pressed a physical play/pause/stop button in their lives. Still, they get it. Some icons outlive their era

Did it though? Most people young today probably never pressed a physical play/pause/stop button in their lives. Still, they get it. Some icons outlive their era, some don’t. > In the 90s everybody knew how a paper book worked I hope that’s still the case!

thaumasiotes 1mo ago
> Did it though? Most people young today probably never pressed a physical play/pause/stop button in their lives. It's hard to call this an example of "skeuomorphism". Those icons were introduced on physical buttons with a certain meaning that everybody had to learn. They have exactly the same meaning on software buttons; the interaction that people have with them now is the same interaction that everybody has always had with them. This isn't a case of the software appealing to a visual metaphor that made non-metaphorical sense before the software. It was just as much of a metaphor originally as it is now. You might as well call the word "edit" a skeuomorphism in modern software because past software also had "edit" menus.
- andyroid 1mo ago
  > the interaction that people have with them now is the same interaction that everybody has always had with them Right, that was my point. What does it matter what a diskette used to be? Unless something more obvious to convey storage/saving comes along, it’s hardly “crashing down” anytime soon.
  - thaumasiotes 1mo ago
    The disk icon is skeuomorphic because it's a picture of storage media. That has now gone obsolete and, instead of being skeuomorphic, it's vestigial. Play and pause icons aren't skeuomorphic. They're symbolic. There is no point at which they were a reference to some phenomenon earlier than or other than themselves.
    - inigyou 1mo ago
      Play, rewind and FF icons were referring to the physical movement of tape past the play head, back when you could see the tape. Don't know what pause came from. Maybe there was a pair of felt pads that would press the tape on either side of the head to keep it tensioned while preventing movement?
      - swiftcoder 1mo ago
        > Don't know what pause came from The double-pipe pause symbol originates on the video side, where pausing keeps displaying a freeze-frame image, and stopping does not. Audio players had pause long before (which just causes the drive wheel to un-grip the tape), but used a variety of different symbols.
asddubs 1mo ago
I guess even with the physical buttons you had to just learn that triangle means play and twin towers means pause
- jodrellblank 1mo ago
  I guess even without the physical buttons you had to just learn that "play" means "engage the appropriate technical machinery". > "[play] The meaning "to cause (a recording) to reproduce what is on it" is by 1903, probably from the "make music" sense." - https://www.etymonline.com/word/play https://www.etymonline.com/word/play

thaumasiotes 1mo ago

> Did it though? Most people young today probably never pressed a physical play/pause/stop button in their lives. It's hard to call this an example of "skeuomorphism". Those icons were introduced on physical buttons with a certain meaning that everybody had to learn. They have exactly the same meaning on software buttons; the interaction that people have with them now is the same interaction that everybody has always had with them. This isn't a case of the software appealing to a visual metaphor that made non-metaphorical sense before the software. It was just as much of a metaphor originally as it is now. You might as well call the word "edit" a skeuomorphism in modern software because past software also had "edit" menus.

andyroid 1mo ago
> the interaction that people have with them now is the same interaction that everybody has always had with them Right, that was my point. What does it matter what a diskette used to be? Unless something more obvious to convey storage/saving comes along, it’s hardly “crashing down” anytime soon.
- thaumasiotes 1mo ago
  The disk icon is skeuomorphic because it's a picture of storage media. That has now gone obsolete and, instead of being skeuomorphic, it's vestigial. Play and pause icons aren't skeuomorphic. They're symbolic. There is no point at which they were a reference to some phenomenon earlier than or other than themselves.
  - inigyou 1mo ago
    Play, rewind and FF icons were referring to the physical movement of tape past the play head, back when you could see the tape. Don't know what pause came from. Maybe there was a pair of felt pads that would press the tape on either side of the head to keep it tensioned while preventing movement?
    - swiftcoder 1mo ago
      > Don't know what pause came from The double-pipe pause symbol originates on the video side, where pausing keeps displaying a freeze-frame image, and stopping does not. Audio players had pause long before (which just causes the drive wheel to un-grip the tape), but used a variety of different symbols.

asddubs 1mo ago

I guess even with the physical buttons you had to just learn that triangle means play and twin towers means pause

jodrellblank 1mo ago
I guess even without the physical buttons you had to just learn that "play" means "engage the appropriate technical machinery". > "[play] The meaning "to cause (a recording) to reproduce what is on it" is by 1903, probably from the "make music" sense." - https://www.etymonline.com/word/play https://www.etymonline.com/word/play