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Skeuomorphism

skeu.it

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Re: Skeuomorphism

#71

Post by bluthru »

brandoncapecci wrote: post #69
zachrose wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody has to say it.

Though I agree with both of you, I think that there is a certain amount of success that drives these designs to continue to be made. In retrospect it's quite easy to criticize the design here and naturally, we are all pretty unanimous that it could be much better. That being said, saying "it fails because it uses textures" is very different than "it fails in it's use of textures". Try doing a ghetto case study by ask…

It's incredibly annoying to see some people discount any design if it is anything more than flat and solid colors.

Everyone of all design understanding levels understands a sense of craft. Subtle gradients, shadows, textures, and effects go a long way to creating a 2d digital object of worth.

Nothing in the real world is a solid color--it has light, texture, and materiality. Stripping a visual of all of these characteristics creates an uneasy steril-ness that can feel flat and or cheap.

Re: Skeuomorphism

#72

Post by bthomas »

egypturnash wrote: post #64

Remember when you were 4 or so? And you had a "busy box"? Just a bunch of levers to move, buttons to push, dials to turn? A well-done skeuomorphic interface, I submit, can be a busy box for grownups. What's wrong with having a few things in your life that partake of both "toy" and "tool"?

Do you have an example in mind?

Re: Skeuomorphism

#73

Post by gurkendoktor »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #27
shinratdr wrote: post #7

So 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 Because it reproduces a hypothetical real-world object, that not only doesn't make any sense (what is a sheet of paper hanging from a glass panel anyway?), but doesn't add any meaning to what this interface is supposed to do? You can use skeumorphism where it makes sense. The problem is that login form has no analog in real-life, so in this one…

> 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.

That is not a problem. A problem is: "it is hard to use", "it uses a lot of bandwidth", "people dislike it in A/B testing and buy less".

Re: Skeuomorphism

#74

Post by wwweston »

DevinDawson wrote: post #68
tb303 wrote: post #24

Hey 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 artif…

With a username like that, I want to see an analysis of Rebirth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReBirth_RB-338

Good - the skeu on Rebirth helps orient people on what they're using: a virtual re-creation of a piece of hardware.

Bad - screen-rendered knobs are awkward to work with using pointer oriented input (mouse, touch pad/screen, stylus).

Re: Skeuomorphism

#75

Post by egypturnash »

bthomas wrote: post #72
egypturnash wrote: post #64

Remember when you were 4 or so? And you had a "busy box"? Just a bunch of levers to move, buttons to push, dials to turn? A well-done skeuomorphic interface, I submit, can be a busy box for grownups. What's wrong with having a few things in your life that partake of both "toy" and "tool"?

Do you have an example in mind?

Well, here's a post on the blog under discussion of a brightly-colored UI that definitely has a "busy box" vibe: http://skeu.it/post/28492549355/crysonic

(A lot of music software has this ultra-skeumorphic vibe. I guess to appeal to luddite musicians? Or just because it's fun to do. Maybe both.)

A lot of the skins from Audion ( http://panic.com/audion/index.html ) had a busy box/toy kind of vibe too, though the animation was pretty limited: http://panic.com/audion/gallery/previews/panman.jpg http://panic.com/audion/gallery/previews/contragrav.jpg - the better ones, for me, had this kind of "here's a cool vinyl toy for your desk, except it's virtual, and plays music".

Re: Skeuomorphism

#76

Post by esolyt »

cageface wrote: post #67
bpatrianakos wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In defense of your parent I think you misunderstood what he's saying is boring. What I took it to mean was that if you write off everything remotely skeuomorphic, textured, etc. and only leave 2D Windows Phone style pure digital design then that becomes boring. It's not boring because it's WP-digital style but because after a while that style of design will become as boring and played out as skeuomorphic design. Wind…

The thing I really like about Android, and to an even greater extent WP8, is that apps feel more like pieces of an integrated task. On iOS every app wants to be a special snowflake and this is annoying when most of the time I just want to grab an image or a chunk of text from one place and use it in another place. To me this is all part of one overall task and the UI should feel like a cohesive tool for this and not…

Good point. For those interested, here is Matias Duarte talking exactly about this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shmKDELDr4w

Re: Skeuomorphism

#77

Post by Ygg2 »

snogglethorpe wrote: post #59
shinratdr wrote: post #7

So 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…

> So skeuomorphism is now anything besides Windows Phone style "pure digital"? ... I don't know why texture is such a bad thing. Of course you can overdo it like anything, ... Here's a key to interpreting the internet (and, well, all of society really, but the internet is like normal society on speed): (1) People love to whine. (2) People love to feel that they're on the cusp of a trend. (3) People love to repeat wha…

Except that when it comes to usability, using skeuomorphism tends to confuse user (note that it happens in some cases), because it implies that something will behave in a certain way like a real world counterpart, while that piece of interface might not.

I liken this stance of skeuomorphism to Douglas Crockford's stance on JSLint. To parahprase him "if there are two ways to do something and one of them can be a terrible source of conusion, use the other". This was originally meant for programming but it can apply as well to designing interfaces. So using skeuomorphism isn't immediately bad but it's a red flag, like saying if(a=b) in C.

Re: Skeuomorphism

#78

Post by tsahyt »

I'm going to go against what seems to be the opinion of lots of designers and bloggers these days and say: I actually like skeuomorphism, if it's well executed.

EDIT: I'm talking about visuals now. How it affects usability is part of "well executed".

Re: Skeuomorphism

#79

Post by tb303 »

wwweston wrote: post #74
DevinDawson wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a username like that, I want to see an analysis of Rebirth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReBirth_RB-338

Good - the skeu on Rebirth helps orient people on what they're using: a virtual re-creation of a piece of hardware. Bad - screen-rendered knobs are awkward to work with using pointer oriented input (mouse, touch pad/screen, stylus).

That covers it pretty well!

To further elaborate, getting deep into nerdland here...

The fundamental mistake with Rebirth is the literal translation. For someone to choose Rebirth over the actual hardware, they likely do not own the hardware (for those actually bothering to read this, software doesn't sound quite like 20-year-old hardware, especially in this example). Therefore, there was little reason to mimic the odd limitations of the originals unrelated to sound or performance. The UI could have been more...I can't think of the word but "homunculus" comes to mind, that is, the knobs and interactive elements could have been larger, while retaining the visual aesthetic of the originals. The 303 could have benefitted (as with modern CPU upgrades to it) live note editing. Things like that. Maintaining weird, frustrating aspects of the originals, for the sake of appealing to people who probably never owned them, would be my #1 criticism.

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