Skeuomorphism is the easy way out • Hacker News Board

Re: Skeuomorphism is the easy way out

#11

Post by crazygringo » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 9:36 PM UTC

Skeumorphism is no more an "easy way out" than black Helvetica on a white background is an "easy way out". They can both be used appropriately, or used badly and in excess.

The address book in OSX is an example of bad skeumorphism -- it's a fake book with pages that don't actually turn, trying to shoehorn "advanced" computer technology into a visual representation that doesn't work. It's a bad metaphor, a bad analogy. It confuses more than it helps.

The "Notes" application on OSX is a fantastic use of skeumorphism. The legal-pad look shows us at a glance that it's for taking notes, which a plain white background wouldn't do. The analogy between individual note documents and pages is perfect. Anyone can use it instantly, without worrying where documents are saved or anything like that.

The fundamental question is, are design choices helping or hindering understandability and usability? Apps and the web have evolved conventions like share icons and tabs and underlined/colored links, etc. which people understand. Skeumorphism just adds vocabulary from the physical world to the toolbox.

And in the opposite direction of skeumorphism, I think the SVBTLE blog platform itself goes too far to the minimalist. I can't tell people's blogs apart, because they all look virtually identical -- that's bad design. And what the heck is the "kudos nipple"? Why do you hover instead of clicking? A simple thumbs-up icon would be understandable by everyone, which is almost skeumorphic in its own way, since it refers to a physical thumbs-up... Reference to the physical world can be a very useful thing.

Re: Skeuomorphism is the easy way out

#12

Post by MartinCron » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 9:44 PM UTC

gdubs wrote: post #9

MartinCron wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just looked at some Polychord screenshots and it looks great, nothing like the bizarre garish skins of iPad contacts or iMovie. Good work.

Thanks! We hired Jonas Eriksson ( http://erikssonjonas.com/ ) to do the redesign.

It seems like the lesson here is that Skeuomorphism is OK if you're modeling it after something that is gorgeous and tactile to begin with. Not all real-world objects are things that I even care to interact with in the real-world.

Re: Skeuomorphism is the easy way out

#13

Post by lazylland » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 9:48 PM UTC

I love this about designers - they are so passionate and so convinced about the latest design fad, when in reality the only constant is change.

People just like "new" things ... one season its faux leather, another season its gray Helvetica on stark white.

Re: Skeuomorphism is the easy way out

#14

Post by thebigpicture » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 9:49 PM UTC

evilduck wrote: post #10

thebigpicture wrote: post #5

Using a computer to do the things we normally do, e.g., sending bits to each other, requires that we adopt metaphors. Even something as basic as a "email" is a metaphor. How long does it take to learn a new metaphor? How difficult is it? It's far easier to just stick with the metaphors you already know. And that is, I think, what "most" people do. This applies to more than just computers. "Some" people might like to…

I don't think everyone learns email as a metaphor though. While I'm old enough to have sent and received paper mail as a means of communication, it's highly likely that my toddler will have sent email (and internalized the concept) before having interacted with physical mail systems. It's a metaphor for us to call it email but it's a vestigial name to the younger generations. Think of the floppy disk being a metaphor…

But a floppy disk is not a metaphor. The metaphor is a "file" as a description for a series of electromagetic charges on a floppy disk.

It is indeed interesting that children may likely interact with email before postal mail. But postal mail shows no signs of disappearing anytime soon. Probably not during your lifetime and the lifetime of your startup while you're acquiring a critical mass of users.

Do you think it will be possible to conduct 100% of your affairs in life without ever sending or receiving postal mail? That postal mail will never be used by anyone you transact with?

No doubt we may someday reach a "paperless" world where all your affairs can be handled without every using postal mail. And where people never ever use postal mail and have no reason to even know of its existence. Maybe your children may see this come to pass.

But for the purposes of your startup, is that day something you should be concerned about? Is your target market toddlers? Or people old enough to have credit cards, today? People who know how to use email.

Re: Skeuomorphism is the easy way out

#15

Post by enra » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 10:07 PM UTC

taligent wrote: post #4

I think he misses the point here that 'people like to have fun'. We know that skeumorphic designs aren't the most efficient and in some cases may confuse the user. But these apps aren't being used to control a spaceship. They are often used in the 5 min gap between meetings or on the train where a tiny sliver of fun is perfect. Whereas when I look at something like Kicksend it's just another boring, stale and uninspi…

You can maybe lure people in with nice marketing, packaging or a fun interface, but in the end you want users who stick around.

If you think about apps the most every day, they're quite plain or unfun. They're maybe pleasant, probably effective, and you use them to get things done.

Re: Skeuomorphism is the easy way out

#16

Post by bitwize » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 10:08 PM UTC

No.

No, no, no, no, no.

Idiotic design decisions like this are why computers have long been the province of mathematicians, scientists, programmers, and other eggheads.

Sheuomorphism is the RIGHT way out -- if you are designing for the general mass of human beings. I happen to know personally the designer of one of the first pieces of personal finance software -- "Electric Checkbook" for Macintosh. (There's a site going by that name that appears to have been started by his son.) It was the template from which Quicken was largely derived, but that's a long, sad, and dirty story.

The advantage of Electric Checkbook over any of the competition, its creator told me, was implicit in the name: it literally worked just like a checkbook with on-screen checks you fill out and an option to print your electronic checks as real checks. It was far easier and more comfortable to use than any of the professional accounting systems out there because it offered the average user the comfort of the familiar.

That Apple successfully deploys skeuomorphism in order to make its average user base feel at ease is a big part of why they're so much better than any other tech company out there. So what if iBooks looks just like a bookshelf, to no functional use whatever. It helps avid readers get into the reading zone, giving them a bit of the joy of perusing their favorite real bookshelves. And that's an edge over the competition.

And no, Microsoft Bob didn't lose because of skeuomorphism. Microsoft Bob lost because it was tacky.

Re: Skeuomorphism is the easy way out

#17

Post by zevyoura » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 10:10 PM UTC

eyevariety wrote: post #7

Bashing skeuomorphism is the easy way out. Non physical affordances don't come easy, and like it or not our brains are trained in a world of 3 dimensions made of matter. Dieter Rams built things around their functional components, the materials available and the other constraints given to him by a physical world. Edward Tufte preaches that content rules and all else is extra. We can certainly minimize everything that…

"...a world of flat squares with Helvetica labels takes a whole lot more mental cycles to process than that beveled 3d button, and it always will."

Do you have a citation for that? I'm genuinely interested in reading more about it, because it seems somewhat counter-intuitive. The idea that simpler shapes would be harder to process visually is very fascinating to me.

Re: Skeuomorphism is the easy way out

#18

Post by comex » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 10:22 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #11

Skeumorphism is no more an "easy way out" than black Helvetica on a white background is an "easy way out". They can both be used appropriately, or used badly and in excess. The address book in OSX is an example of bad skeumorphism -- it's a fake book with pages that don't actually turn, trying to shoehorn "advanced" computer technology into a visual representation that doesn't work. It's a bad metaphor, a bad analogy…

And what the heck is the "kudos nipple"? Why do you hover instead of clicking?

...I never even knew that was interactive. I guess I might have tried to click it if I wanted to give a kudo, but not before looking at the bottom of the page or something. Too far indeed.

Re: Skeuomorphism is the easy way out

#19

Post by eyevariety » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 10:33 PM UTC

zevyoura wrote: post #17

eyevariety wrote: post #7

Bashing skeuomorphism is the easy way out. Non physical affordances don't come easy, and like it or not our brains are trained in a world of 3 dimensions made of matter. Dieter Rams built things around their functional components, the materials available and the other constraints given to him by a physical world. Edward Tufte preaches that content rules and all else is extra. We can certainly minimize everything that…

"...a world of flat squares with Helvetica labels takes a whole lot more mental cycles to process than that beveled 3d button, and it always will." Do you have a citation for that? I'm genuinely interested in reading more about it, because it seems somewhat counter-intuitive. The idea that simpler shapes would be harder to process visually is very fascinating to me.

Its not that a simpler shape isn't easier to process, its that its harder to infer purpose when there is so little information (like in the case of Metro). A button is something that needs to be 'pressed' so it should look like it can be- and by doing so you understand that it is a button much faster.

Donald Norman and Jakob Neilsen have long preached this and they have a bunch of info on affordances and why they work: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/affordances_and.html

More recently see Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think"

Re: Skeuomorphism is the easy way out

#20

Post by comex » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 10:36 PM UTC

thebigpicture wrote: post #14

evilduck wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think everyone learns email as a metaphor though. While I'm old enough to have sent and received paper mail as a means of communication, it's highly likely that my toddler will have sent email (and internalized the concept) before having interacted with physical mail systems. It's a metaphor for us to call it email but it's a vestigial name to the younger generations. Think of the floppy disk being a metaphor…

But a floppy disk is not a metaphor. The metaphor is a "file" as a description for a series of electromagetic charges on a floppy disk. It is indeed interesting that children may likely interact with email before postal mail. But postal mail shows no signs of disappearing anytime soon. Probably not during your lifetime and the lifetime of your startup while you're acquiring a critical mass of users. Do you think it w…

I also started using radio buttons long before I learned that they were based on car radios, and once I did so I didn't suddenly start thinking of the buttons as metaphorical; it's just an interesting fact to me. And though I did use floppy disks when I was younger, the idea of a floppy disk no longer even enters my mind when I look for the floppy disk icon; it's just an arbitrary recognizable shape. (The metaphor is "save to floppy disk" as "save to any drive".)

This matters mainly because I won't be bothered if either control starts acting in a way that breaks the metaphor, like a save icon that saves to the cloud (no need to carry a disk around) or a radio button with a design that looks nothing like a car radio (like the current design, as best as I can tell). And it's not black and white: though I've always known a folder is based on a filing cabinet, I've never been bothered that they can be infinitely nested. The more people are familiar with the "metaphor", the less it's necessary to stick to purely metaphorical elements.