Skeu is saccharine, and that's why it sucks. Mouthful of gloss. Yuck.
Skeuomorphism
21–30 of 106 posts
Re: Skeuomorphism
#22I don't understand all the hate for skeuomorphism lately. Who cares if the todo app uses a design that makes it feel like a leather bound paper notebook. The point of design is to make something functional and beautiful. As long as it doesn't actively make the functionality worse, and some people like they way it looks, what is the problem?
Re: Skeuomorphism
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that's part of the point here. The visual metaphor of leather doesn't make much sense, and is only there as an ornament because it (apparently) looks attractive. Why include the leather at all, if it's not a helpful metaphor for using the product?
Devil's advocate: leather, or any skin for that matter, creates a distinctiveness to the app that serves as kind of a "key" to your mental model of how it works and what it's for. That key can be used in various incarnations of your app's UI, on the web, across platforms, or even in system services (like notifications or Siri's sheets) to let the user quickly make the association with your app.
except for the fact that leather is massively overused these days.
There's nothing inherently evil about having leather, but don't think it makes for a distinctive look.
Re: Skeuomorphism
#24Hey all. I'm the curator (punch me in the feelings for saying that) of Skeu.it.
Thanks for the support!
I'm enjoying the debate here and won't get too much into it. For those arguing what is and isn't skeuomorphism, you're missing the point of the showcase.
Skeu.it, as specified on the masthead, celebrates arbitrary and gratuitous user interface decisions. Specifically, this means the misappropriation of visual artifacts designed for evoking familiarity in both form and function.
So yes, in my joyfully entitled opinion, using a big piece of frosted glass, with paper hanging from a rope, with magic buttons that somehow exist on lined paper, is a foolish design choice. Really, I wouldn't even call it a design choice, I'd say it's more just a collection of photoshop tutorials masquerading as an interface. Unnecessary skeu is the 2012+ version of the House Industries' "Crackhouse" typeface (http://www.houseind.com/fonts/crackhouse) appearing on every website and flyer 10 years ago. It's a classic, recognizable typeface...but stare at that for a moment, think back to how it didn't really make sense to announce free puppies or a car wash in deconstructed type, and let the understanding wash over you. Mmm, delicious understanding.
I have no hate towards skeu ("skeuomorphism must die" is silly) at all. In fact, I defend it:
http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-advantages-of-skeuomorphic... (from last year, a bit outdated)
Thanks again, and please send any good candidates my way (@303, @skeuit) for skeu.it!
Edit: Proper capitalization, the official end of my majuscular laziness.
Re: Skeuomorphism
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that's part of the point here. The visual metaphor of leather doesn't make much sense, and is only there as an ornament because it (apparently) looks attractive. Why include the leather at all, if it's not a helpful metaphor for using the product?
Devil's advocate: leather, or any skin for that matter, creates a distinctiveness to the app that serves as kind of a "key" to your mental model of how it works and what it's for. That key can be used in various incarnations of your app's UI, on the web, across platforms, or even in system services (like notifications or Siri's sheets) to let the user quickly make the association with your app.
nobody needs a devil's advocate, it is a cheap way of making an argument for the sake of making an argument.
leather does not add distinctiveness to your app, it creates an association between your app and leather that now shares a bond with the 100s of other apps that use leather. the only apps i can think of that have used leather to such an abstract, memorable extreme are paypal (blue leather wtf?) and find my friends, the classic.
mental models have nothing to do with this, unless the average user has a previous experience that associates your product/service/offering with leather. even cowboy boots, even some sort of evocative mood, whatever, that's fine, but if you are using leather because you think you're making it distinct, there are far too many others doing the same.
Re: Skeuomorphism
#26So skeuomorphism is now anything besides Windows Phone style "pure digital"? Shiny = glass, black texture = leather, blue texture = denim, etc? That's going to be really, really boring. I don't know why texture is such a bad thing. Of course you can overdo it like anything, but personally I prefer Reeder with a light paper-pulp backing texture instead of a plain light peach background. For example, what is so bad abo…
What is wrong? Mainly the fact that those have nothing to do with skeuomorphism, it is only pointless bloat. Those designs have nothing to do with real world metaphors, they just shout "I can use cool textures too!"
And it is not new; the first weave of this epidemy stroked Windows somewhere around Win98 when average developers, inspired by a few actual skeumorphic designs, have learned how to use non-rectangular visibility regions and all this crappy ~1MB shareware become ~10MB (because of textures) crappier (because author had spent most time on "design") shareware that was antiskeuomorphic because it looked/behaved neither "real" nor like a Windows application. Both Luna and then Aero were nice enough to make people appreciate consistency and refocus on function, while the madness moved to iStuff (ok, Android too, but thank heavens considerably less).
Re: Skeuomorphism
#27So skeuomorphism is now anything besides Windows Phone style "pure digital"? Shiny = glass, black texture = leather, blue texture = denim, etc? That's going to be really, really boring. I don't know why texture is such a bad thing. Of course you can overdo it like anything, but personally I prefer Reeder with a light paper-pulp backing texture instead of a plain light peach background. For example, what is so bad abo…
For example, what is so bad about this?
http://skeu.it/image/24908403424
You can use skeumorphism where it makes sense. The problem is that login form has no analog in real-life, so in this one designer just went crazy for the sake of it.
EDIT: Yay, let's downvote.
Re: Skeuomorphism
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Devil's advocate: leather, or any skin for that matter, creates a distinctiveness to the app that serves as kind of a "key" to your mental model of how it works and what it's for. That key can be used in various incarnations of your app's UI, on the web, across platforms, or even in system services (like notifications or Siri's sheets) to let the user quickly make the association with your app.
nobody needs a devil's advocate, it is a cheap way of making an argument for the sake of making an argument. leather does not add distinctiveness to your app, it creates an association between your app and leather that now shares a bond with the 100s of other apps that use leather. the only apps i can think of that have used leather to such an abstract, memorable extreme are paypal (blue leather wtf?) and find my fri…
Well, obviously there are tons of apps that have diluted leather's distinctiveness (and leather is but one example), but the argument for a garish, non-functional skin is still as I outlined above.
Also, I didn't mean to imply that leather in itself teaches you how an app works. However, once you've used an app with a distinct skin, the next time you launch that app the skin, as a sort of visual touchstone, will help you remember how you used it in the past, etc.
Re: Skeuomorphism
#29I don't understand all the hate for skeuomorphism lately. Who cares if the todo app uses a design that makes it feel like a leather bound paper notebook. The point of design is to make something functional and beautiful. As long as it doesn't actively make the functionality worse, and some people like they way it looks, what is the problem ?
and some people like they way it looks
The bar that I use for complaining about something is if I like the way it looks.
Re: Skeuomorphism
#30I don't understand all the hate for skeuomorphism lately. Who cares if the todo app uses a design that makes it feel like a leather bound paper notebook. The point of design is to make something functional and beautiful. As long as it doesn't actively make the functionality worse, and some people like they way it looks, what is the problem ?
I see the current skeuomorphism trend, in a way, as cargo-culting. People saw some questionable, but not entirely dreadful uses of it (basically Apple's effort) and thought, "yeah that looks good! I'm going to give my app an awesome real life texture!"
Take the denim weather app design for example.
To what extent does a denim effect, that one would associate primarily with jeans, have anything to do with the weather? Did the designer think to question that, or was it just a case of mind-bogglingly detailed texture being the in thing?
I mean, if you can't come up with a reason for that particular choice of visual metaphor other than "it looks good", then was it really the right choice?
On a side note, I dislike the usage of this in native app design. You'd get those ridiculous apps in Windows XP with bonkers custom UIs, including Safari and Quicktime, for that matter. Now apps in OSX are skinned in odd ways (in Address Book's case, detrimentally so) and Windows 8 appears to be aiming for a consistent look and feel.