A talk given at Flashbacks: Nostalgic media and mediated forms of nostalgia International Conference (13-14 September 2012) at the University of Geneva.
10. Methodology
Series of interview with interface designers
Content analysis of formal (manual) and informal
knowledge (forum discussions, blogposts)
In order to highlight a series of tensions/
contrasted perspectives
13. Useless
“Icons on a computer are the way they are
because they're a good way to represent the
concept of a block of bytes on the disc, a
concept that many users do not want to have to
engage with. But a calendar is an abstract
concept that people already have an accurate
mental model of, and therefore it doesn't have to
look any particular way at all, especially now that
we're just using a bunch of pixels to do the
presentation.”
15. Does not account for the new possibilities
offered by the digital
16. Misplaced nostalgia?
“They attempt to comfort us
(to patronise us) by trying to show how
they relate to physical objects in the real
world when there is no need. How are we
helped to understand what ‘Find My
Friends’ does by the addition of leather
trim?“
18. “if it's walking like a duck,
it should quack” (Tom Hume)
“skeuomorphism is a justifiable and
inevitable approach to take when
the interactions in your interface are
direct-manipulative and use physical
metaphors. If they behave as though
they are real things, should they not
appear like real things?”
Jack Schulze, Berg London
20. A transition?
“The arcane visual languages being used (even
encouraged in the HIG) are an over-reaction
against the slick, affordanceless hardware. It’s a
phase I think, and actually quite visually
pragmatic. The challenge of new visual languages
for glowing rectangles that are intimately tied to
the physical world”
Timo Arnall, 2010
21. conclusion
Contrasted perspective, skeuomorphs can be pertinent
Different user targets, different design strategies
Implicitly: the importance of physical objects in order to
create digital interfaces
Coming from archaelogy, the notion of « skeuomorph » can be described as a feature of a current object inherited from some precursor artefact (Basalla, 1988). As described by Hayles (1999), this design feature « is no longer functional in itself but that refers back to a feature that was functional at an earlier time ». Skeuomorphs are often employed by designers as familiar cues to make a new object more accessible to the users.\n
\n
Semi-spherical keys on the iPhone are reminiscent of the Braun ET calculator: they are meant to stimulate the look of a rounded 3D button, to reassure the user\n
Sound skeuomorph\n\n
Another example of Skeuomorph\n
Backlash...\n
Interestingly, this disgust is not new...\nOne way to look at it can be to compare what is similar and what’s new\nBut this is not where I am going...\n
Another surprising aspect = is that the company who was quite keen on minimalistic design... is now at the forefront of skeuomorphism...\nThis means that it’s an interesting research object, there must be curious tensions at stake here, controversies in the design process\n
Which is why I conducted a series of interview with interaction designers + literature review of designer’s practice... in order to highlight these tensions and contradictions\n\n
Source: Co.DESIGN\n
Source: James Higgs: http://madebymany.com/blog/apples-aesthetic-dichotomy\n
\n
“Nearly everything about a real calculator is faithfully reproduced, but with the good comes the bad: nearly every limitation and frustration has also been reproduced. There’s very little reason to use the software facsimile over its real-world equivalent, and in some ways, the physical object is better. My preferred calculator [Soulver], which I will keep blogging about until it’s ubiquitous, wasn’t designed against any physical objects because there’s no physical equivalent to what it does.” Marco Arment\n
Source: James Higgs: http://madebymany.com/blog/apples-aesthetic-dichotomy\n
\n
\n
Source: Tom Hume: http://www.tomhume.org/2012/03/if-its-walking-like-a-duck-it-should-quack.html\n
Source: Timo Arnall, in a comment to http://speedbird.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/what-apple-needs-to-do-now/\n