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| 'Rift' within Apple over skeuomorphism fetish |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-09-11 20:28:55 |
| Ah, skeuomorphism - my favourite punching bag. Austin Carr has spoken to former Apple designers and people within the company, and they're all confirming there's a rift within Cupertino between people who want to move away from skeuomorphism, and people who want to retain it as much as possible, and even want to expand it. Since I've long hoped for Apple to ditch this "visual masturbation", as one former Apple designer calls it, I'm happy to learn not the entire company supports skeuomorphism. |
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| Speaking of |
| By Nelson on 2012-09-11 20:58:26 |
| Check this website out http://skeu.it/ and weap. This has got to stop. |
 - Score: 12 |
| Agreed |
| By Drunkula on 2012-09-11 21:01:13 |
| Not so much that I like Metro but when skeumorphism helps that's okay. But not to the point of visual masturbation. Best way to put it... |
| - Score: 5 |
| skeuomorphism should be abandoned |
| By markus on 2012-09-11 21:14:44 |
|
There are concepts like flipping a page (with gestures) where skeuomorphism may work, but when I first saw calendar or address book in Lion I just thought that it is the most ugly piece of UI I ever! Young generations will grow up without traditional (paper) calendars or address books, so there is absolutely no need to mimic these. When I see the latest OS releases from Apple I always feel the same: - most times easy to learn - but not easy to use (no short cuts, wrong assumptions about how power users are working) In the old days the UI balance from Apple was much better. |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE: Speaking of |
| By Drumhellar on 2012-09-11 21:16:51 |
| That is just awesome. |
| - Score: 3 |
| iCandy |
| By tomz on 2012-09-11 22:02:54 |
|
Originally Mac OSX v. Windoz was easy. The animations and apparent glitz or bling on Macs indicate something - were useful while on windoz were not relevant. Now Apple is doing irrelevant junk. The kwe question is does a paradigm make things significantly easier or is just eye-candy that eats resources. |
| - Score: 2 |
| Comment by gan17 |
| By gan17 on 2012-09-11 22:05:46 |
|
I think this whole Skeumorphist thing might have been the reason the App Store got so big so fast. Apple gave devs and designers free-reign with regards to looks (possibly to compensate for other restrictions they placed, I dunno), and this is what you got. Not that I support the idea or anything. I hate all this inconsistency. So much so that, now that I use Android, I've limited myself to using Holo themed apps exclusively as much as possible (games and some Autodesk software being the only exception). Forget about apps. Just do a comparo between Google Now and Siri. Disregard the voice detection and accuracy of results for a moment, and just concentrate on the way each pulls up their results. Google Now gets the consistency points with results either via cards or Google's search. On iOS, it's all over the place. Yahoo weather widgets, Google search results, Wolfram Alpha paper for calculations, some hideous clock widget with rounded edges for time, sports results in sharp-edged cards, etc. For a company that claims to be design-oriented, this lack of consistency is downright abysmal. Whatever this rift is about, I sure hope the side that wins brings a far more consistent UI experience. I'm not asking for terminals everywhere (though that would be awesome in its own way), but at least make them stop being so damn tacky. Edited 2012-09-11 22:22 UTC |
| - Score: 5 |
| I don't get it... |
| By thavith_osn on 2012-09-11 22:46:19 |
|
NB: My argument below is on good design where form and function are equal. WTF does it matter! Your app has a leather look or wooden look or notepad look or whatever. Designers cannot win, some will opt for real world look and feel, some will want a more abstract design. What I do like about visual masturbation is someone who has never used the system before can get an idea of what the "object" in question does (if done right). The real world gives us cues, so why not use them. I do agree that if the design gets in the way of function then I have an issue, but if all things are equal, who gives a #@$% Personally, I don't care, if the app works and is easy to use and understand, then I'm happy. iCal is very easy to use and understand, I have 0 problems with it. |
| - Score: 4 |
| Perceived quality? |
| By Gone fishing on 2012-09-11 22:53:20 |
|
Apples are thin aluminium and shiny. If you mimic high quality designer objects in the real world then you get perceived quality in the virtual world. Apples are thin aluminium and shiny, apple owners aspire to Ray-ban and Gucci. Skeuomorphism is not about ease of use its about perceived quality |
| - Score: 4 |
| skeuomorphic design is pointless |
| By abraxas on 2012-09-11 23:56:52 |
| The argument that skeuomorphic design is beneficial to new users is incredibly short sighted. Consistent look, feel, and function overall makes operating the entire system and all of its programs much easier. Learn exactly ONE paradigm that makes figuring everything else out easy compared to several completely different skeuomorphic designs. All of which have a vague resemblance to real objects but make none of the actual functional advantages of using software obvious. |
| - Score: 5 |
| RE: Speaking of |
| By Luminair on 2012-09-12 00:16:28 |
| this is a really good example of how crazy the people who talk about "skeuomorphism" are. they don't reflect the normal brain at all. truly deranged. |
| - Score: 2 |
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