Comments on: In praise of skeuomorphs

By: Rodney Macfarlane

Rodney Macfarlane — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:00:00 +0000

“* Artificial film grain added to digitally-shot movies to give a softer, more expensive effect.” Check on iSupr8 for iPhone/iPad2.

By: OoerictoO

OoerictoO — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:33:00 +0000

i disagree on the camera example, since the highest quality in current technology (DSLRs) exhibit this behavior. same thing with real leather sandals (some would argue being the highest of quality/fashion based upon material alone).

By: OoerictoO

OoerictoO — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:30:00 +0000

disagree on the camera and car door examples. not only film cameras “click” when the lens opens and closes. DSLRs do this too, as it’s how they operate.
in the case of cars, higher quality cars thunk because it’s what they do, due to other design constraints and materials.
i don’t think these count, as the highest quality examples of new technology still exhibit this behavior.
same thing with (fake) leather sandals.

By: retepslluerb

retepslluerb — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:44:00 +0000

That’s actually not an 90mm disc icon, but an ancient Sumerian icon for “drying tablet”.

By: retepslluerb

retepslluerb — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:42:00 +0000

Hnmmm—-Yes, when we count the click sound on the camera (which has become largely ornamental, since people started not using the view finder anymore) this counts as skeumorphic.

By: Zachary_Bos

Zachary_Bos — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:22:00 +0000

That there IS a sound, is a functional decision. That the sound chosen was THIS sound, is skeuomorphic.

By: retepslluerb

retepslluerb — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:21:00 +0000

Is it? The sound is not ornamental.

By: Crashproof

Crashproof — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:07:00 +0000

Or the analog handset icons on smartphones.

By: nemonomen

nemonomen — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:02:00 +0000

I read some time ago (and googling it again I found some unreferenced citations of this fact) that in Japan and South Korea the “click” sound on cellphones taking pictures is mandatory by law, intended to let people around know if someone is covertly taking pics. Don’t know if it’s an urban legend though, anyone knows more about it? If true, this is a law-enforced skeuomorfism, like the fake engine noise on electric vehicles in the U.S.

By: Zachary_Bos

Zachary_Bos — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:47:00 +0000

I gathered as much. But that this particular noise was chosen, would make this a skeuomorph.

By: retepslluerb

retepslluerb — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:46:00 +0000

So people have a chance to hear that the display updates?

By: retepslluerb

retepslluerb — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:44:00 +0000

Thing is, there is no reason why the layout should get changed at all. That Dvorak its better than QWERTY (or QWERTZ, in my case) has not been shown. The Dvorakites have their faulty studies, the Qwertyans have theirs.

By: yobar

yobar — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:31:00 +0000

I wonder how difficult it would be to learn Dvorak after 30+ years of touch-typing Qwerty. I bet it would be easier for those of you who didn’t learn on a manual typewriter. Thank God no more carbon paper!!!

By: Zachary_Bos

Zachary_Bos — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:26:00 +0000

We noticed a skeuomorph just last night as we waited for our train at Boston’s North Station. The timetable hanging from the ceiling — which shows arrivals/departures, is entirely digital, with an LED display, but when the information is updated, a recording plays of the old leather-wallet-flapping noise from the obsolete Solari boards. Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-flap_display.

By: Klaus Æ. Mogensen

Klaus Æ. Mogensen — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:52:00 +0000

Early electric water boilers often looked like the kettles you put on stoves – and consequently, many were put on stoves by unsuspecting house guests.

By: design for market

design for market — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:08:00 +0000

you’re right, reading a lot of san serif text is tiring.

By: RJ

RJ — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:55:00 +0000

So a skeuomorph is a transitional design feature used when technological advances outpace people’s ability to accept change. That’s why my phone clicks & whirrs like a film camera, my car doors make a satisfying “thunk” and my keyboard uses a QWERTY layout.

My first impulse is to say that this concept is retarded, but I suppose I’m just as guilty of clinging to outmoded stuff as anybody else. I’m no luddite, but it’s just human nature to settle on this or that way of doing some things, regardless of the march of technology.

By: noah django

noah django — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:49:00 +0000

had to wiki it. it’s pronounced “SKEW-uh-morfs”

before i got sick of her terrible prose, i remember reading Ayn Rand’s character Roark breaking down the idea of the architectural skeuomorphs outlined in this post–and why he found them ridiculous–in The Fountainhead. and Design For Market, maybe you’re right, but serifs make reading small type much easier

By: design for market

design for market — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:18:00 +0000

serifs!

By: retepslluerb

retepslluerb — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:40:00 +0000

I hear ya!

I totally hate it when documentaries about pointy eared and green skinned aliens in faster than light spaceships, shooting each other with laser pistols after jumping out of a matter transmitter get cheapened with such gaudy effects.

By: retepslluerb

retepslluerb — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:36:00 +0000

I don’t consider this a true skeumorph as a keyboard needs a layout. Keeping an established layout is reasonable, even if the reason for that particular layout has become obsolete.

Unless it can be shown that a particulate layout *cough* Dvorak *cough* is vastly better, it makes no sense to establish a new one.

By: pete davidson

pete davidson — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 05:39:00 +0000

The stone pillars at each end of the Sydney Harbour Bridge were there to support the cranes used to build it; they were built to ‘look pretty’ so they could be left afterwards to save the cost of removing them. A half-skeuomorph in the wild?

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:00:00 +0000

well lookie here: http://www.gizmag.com/smart-e-book-system/21097/

By: Rich Keller

Rich Keller — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:56:00 +0000

What do you mean? The man in the red jacket doesn’t look a thing like Captain Koenig.

By: Donald Petersen

Donald Petersen — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:49:00 +0000

I was annoyed with Fallout 3, then Fallout: New Vegas, and now Skyrim for the constant irising everytime your view shifts from bright glare to dimly-lit views. If anything, the effect feels more severe in Skyrim, and can make the game more challenging, but for irritating reasons. It's troublesome enough that our own eyes do that for us IRL, but when a videogame does it for us at the same time that our eyes are also trying to adjust, it gets headache-inducing.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:40:00 +0000

A likely source for the mechanics for the roof of the first convertible cars.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:38:00 +0000

I ran into a video in the last couple of days of a reader app that actually used multi touch to simulate various things we do with real book. Things like quickly flipping pages, or holding a finger between one pair of pages while looking at a reference elsewhere.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:34:00 +0000

I recall watching a show about simulated engine noise. Crazy thing is, putting on the simulated noise of a V8 engine could actually get the driver to behave more aggressively in traffic.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:33:00 +0000

Never mind that more and more devices seems to move away from the idea of specifically saving changes, and towards keeping a log of changes in real time that can be rolled back if one did not want the outcome.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:31:00 +0000

And this is i find the claim that if Ford had asked people what they wanted, they would respond with “a faster horse”. This because it is being presented as the people being ignorant luddites. But to me it is more a case of running out of words to describe ones inner concept. And in a sense they got a faster horse, one that never tires even. Heh, there are even cases too this day of people using a two wheeled engine to draw the old farm carriage.