Skeuomorphism and graphic (and UI) design

[myosh_tino]

A Photoshopped parody (that someone else made) of John Ive's redesign on iOS7 for Apple products.

As much as I like Apple products (I have a MacBook Pro, MacPro, iPad Air and an iPhone 5S), I'm not a huge fan of iOS7.  To me, iOS7's appearance is flat out bland with way too much white being used in the stock apps like Notes which went from looking like a legal notepad (yellow with lines) to a plain piece of paper (white with no lines).

As for the sign in KEK's post, instead of having white text on a semi-transparent background, I think a more appropriate iOS7-style sign would have black text on a white sign/rectangle with no border.

[jakeroot]

IMG
A Photoshopped parody (that someone else made) of John Ive's redesign on iOS7 for Apple products.

As much as I like Apple products (I have a MacBook Pro, MacPro, iPad Air and an iPhone 5S), I'm not a huge fan of iOS7.  To me, iOS7's appearance is flat out bland with way too much white being used in the stock apps like Notes which went from looking like a legal notepad (yellow with lines) to a plain piece of paper (white with no lines).

I spent a ton of my youth ***pretending*** to be a graphical designer, and I can assure you that, while iOS 7 is somewhat of a design flop, iOS6 and earlier was far too skeuomorphic to be acceptable in the graphic design community. This is from the wikipedia article on "Skeuomorph":

The arguments against skeuomorphic design are that skeuomorphic interface elements use metaphors that are more difficult to operate and take up more screen space than standard interface elements, that this breaks operating system interface design standards, that it causes an inconsistent look and feel between applications, that skeuomorphic interface elements rarely incorporate numeric input or feedback for accurately setting a value, that many users may have no experience with the original device being emulated, and that skeuomorphic design limits creativity by grounding the experience to physical counterparts.

Apple Inc., while under the direction of Steve Jobs, was known for its wide usage of skeuomorphic designs in various applications. The debate over the merits of Apple's extensive use of skeuomorphism became the subject of substantial media attention in October 2012, a year after Jobs' death, largely as the result of the reported resignation of Scott Forstall, described as "the most vocal and high-ranking proponent of the visual design style favored by Mr. Jobs". Apple designer Jonathan Ive, who took over some of Forstall's responsibilities and had "made his distaste for the visual ornamentation in Apple's mobile software known within the company", was expected to move the company toward a less skeuomorphic aesthetic. With the announcement of iOS 7 at WWDC, Apple officially shifted from skeuomorphism to a more simplified design, thus beginning the so-called "death of skeuomorphism."

Now, with that said, you could very easily argue for skeuomorphism:

The arguments in favor of skeuomorphic design are that it makes it easier for those familiar with the original device to use the digital emulation and that it is visually appealing. Interactions with computer devices are purely cultural and learned, so once a process is learned in society, it is difficult to remove. Norman describes this process as a form of cultural heritage. In some cases, such as the pilot interface of digital avionics, familiarity to veteran pilots could even be (potentially) a safety issue.

I don't like iOS 7, but I don't like pre-iOS 7 either. Windows Phone and Android seem to have the right idea.

[NE2]

Graphic design and squeeomorphism is about as sensical as this:

Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity

Alan D. Sokal
Department of Physics
New York University
4 Washington Place
New York, NY 10003 USA
Internet: SOKAL@NYU.EDU
Telephone: (212) 998-7729
Fax: (212) 995-4016

November 28, 1994
revised May 13, 1995

    Note: This article was published in Social Text #46/47, pp. 217-252 (spring/summer 1996).

    Biographical Information: The author is a Professor of Physics at New York University. He has lectured widely in Europe and Latin America, including at the Università di Roma ``La Sapienza'' and, during the Sandinista government, at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua. He is co-author with Roberto Fernández and Jürg Fröhlich of Random Walks, Critical Phenomena, and Triviality in Quantum Field Theory (Springer, 1992).

    Transgressing disciplinary boundaries ... [is] a subversive undertaking since it is likely to violate the sanctuaries of accepted ways of perceiving. Among the most fortified boundaries have been those between the natural sciences and the humanities.

    -- Valerie Greenberg, Transgressive Readings (1990, 1)

    The struggle for the transformation of ideology into critical science ... proceeds on the foundation that the critique of all presuppositions of science and ideology must be the only absolute principle of science.

    -- Stanley Aronowitz, Science as Power (1988b, 339)

There are many natural scientists, and especially physicists, who continue to reject the notion that the disciplines concerned with social and cultural criticism can have anything to contribute, except perhaps peripherally, to their research. Still less are they receptive to the idea that the very foundations of their worldview must be revised or rebuilt in the light of such criticism. Rather, they cling to the dogma imposed by the long post-Enlightenment hegemony over the Western intellectual outlook, which can be summarized briefly as follows: that there exists an external world, whose properties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of humanity as a whole; that these properties are encoded in ``eternal'' physical laws; and that human beings can obtain reliable, albeit imperfect and tentative, knowledge of these laws by hewing to the ``objective'' procedures and epistemological strictures prescribed by the (so-called) scientific method.

But deep conceptual shifts within twentieth-century science have undermined this Cartesian-Newtonian metaphysics1; revisionist studies in the history and philosophy of science have cast further doubt on its credibility2; and, most recently, feminist and poststructuralist critiques have demystified the substantive content of mainstream Western scientific practice, revealing the ideology of domination concealed behind the façade of ``objectivity''.3 It has thus become increasingly apparent that physical ``reality'', no less than social ``reality'', is at bottom a social and linguistic construct; that scientific ``knowledge", far from being objective, reflects and encodes the dominant ideologies and power relations of the culture that produced it; that the truth claims of science are inherently theory-laden and self-referential; and consequently, that the discourse of the scientific community, for all its undeniable value, cannot assert a privileged epistemological status with respect to counter-hegemonic narratives emanating from dissident or marginalized communities. These themes can be traced, despite some differences of emphasis, in Aronowitz's analysis of the cultural fabric that produced quantum mechanics4; in Ross' discussion of oppositional discourses in post-quantum science5; in Irigaray's and Hayles' exegeses of gender encoding in fluid mechanics6; and in Harding's comprehensive critique of the gender ideology underlying the natural sciences in general and physics in particular.7

Here my aim is to carry these deep analyses one step farther, by taking account of recent developments in quantum gravity: the emerging branch of physics in which Heisenberg's quantum mechanics and Einstein's general relativity are at once synthesized and superseded. In quantum gravity, as we shall see, the space-time manifold ceases to exist as an objective physical reality; geometry becomes relational and contextual; and the foundational conceptual categories of prior science -- among them, existence itself -- become problematized and relativized. This conceptual revolution, I will argue, has profound implications for the content of a future postmodern and liberatory science.

My approach will be as follows: First I will review very briefly some of the philosophical and ideological issues raised by quantum mechanics and by classical general relativity. Next I will sketch the outlines of the emerging theory of quantum gravity, and discuss some of the conceptual issues it raises. Finally, I will comment on the cultural and political implications of these scientific developments. It should be emphasized that this article is of necessity tentative and preliminary; I do not pretend to answer all of the questions that I raise. My aim is, rather, to draw the attention of readers to these important developments in physical science, and to sketch as best I can their philosophical and political implications. I have endeavored here to keep mathematics to a bare minimum; but I have taken care to provide references where interested readers can find all requisite details.

[KEK Inc.]

I don't think iOS 7 looks too bad.  7.1 is definitely more polished than 7.0 as far as performance, though I'm a little annoyed that they removed the dark keyboard feature of 7.1 beta 1 in future beta releases.



Regardless, I jailbroke my phone and have a dark keyboard again. 

[agentsteel53]

Graphic design and squeeomorphism is about as sensical as this:

sorry but... no, not even close.

skeumorphism is a valid concept that can be understood in two seconds, and objects can be classified as skeumorphic or non-skeumorphic without much ambiguity.  that has nothing to do with the Sokal text, which argued, via parody, that certain areas of philosophy are completely meaningless garbage.

skeumorphism is not garbage. 

besides, since when are you an anti-intellectual? 

[NE2]

Since when do you care what's "acceptable in the graphic design community"? Did that happen when you stopped beating your wife?

[agentsteel53]

Since when do you care what's "acceptable in the graphic design community"?

that's not the hypothesis that's under test here.  when you changed the spelling to a mocking "squeeomorphism" and quoted the Sokal text, you implied that the concept itself was invalid and unscientific.

whether or not it is acceptable in a particular community is a completely different issue. 

Did that happen when you stopped beating your wife?

who says I've stopped?

[jakeroot]

Since when do you care what's "acceptable in the graphic design community"?

Regardless of who you are questioning, this is what's acceptable in the graphic design community:

Good Design Is Innovative : The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.

Good Design Makes a Product Useful : A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product while disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

Good Design Is Aesthetic : The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products are used every day and have an effect on people and their well-being. Only well-executed objects can be beautiful.

Good Design Makes A Product Understandable : It clarifies the product's structure. Better still, it can make the product clearly express its function by making use of the user's intuition. At best, it is self-explanatory.

Good Design Is Unobtrusive : Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user's self-expression.

Good Design Is Honest : It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept

Good Design Is Long-lasting : It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years — even in today's throwaway society.

Good Design Is Thorough Down to the Last Detail : Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.

Good Design Is Environmentally Friendly : Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimises physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.

Good Design Is as Little Design as Possible : Less, but better — because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

Dieter Rams cited Apple as the only company that met his principles. Though, in year's since, iOS's skueomorphic design failed to meet a number of these principles. Not sure present iOS even meets these.

[NE2]

Good Design is Clearview.

[jakeroot]

Good Design is Clearview.

Agreed. Except the numbers. Those are fuck-ugly.

[Scott5114]

Graphic designers would say that Clearview is a good design, because it follows acceptable typographical conventions better than FHWA Series fonts do. For one thing, Clearview is a "humanist" font–there are thin and thick strokes emulating the thick and thin strokes found in handwriting. FHWA Series would probably be classed as a "neo-grotesque" font. While fonts go in and out like any other style, generally designers tend to prefer humanist fonts.

[agentsteel53]

Graphic designers would say that Clearview is a good design, because it follows acceptable typographical conventions better than FHWA Series fonts do. For one thing, Clearview is a "humanist" font–there are thin and thick strokes emulating the thick and thin strokes found in handwriting. FHWA Series would probably be classed as a "neo-grotesque" font. While fonts go in and out like any other style, generally designers tend to prefer humanist fonts.

maybe I just grew up with Highway Gothic, and computer fonts like the Verdana (?) on this forum that, at low resolutions, appears to have a fixed stroke width... but damn do I significantly prefer them to variable-stroke-width fonts for "official" contexts. 

I've always wondered why these simple fixed-stroke-width fonts got labeled "grotesque".  its sociological connotations notwithstanding, "humanist" is a fairly good descriptor of the fonts with variable stroke width.  but when I think of the word "grotesque", I think of something like this:

[Zeffy]

Graphic designers would say that Clearview is a good design, because it follows acceptable typographical conventions better than FHWA Series fonts do. For one thing, Clearview is a "humanist" font–there are thin and thick strokes emulating the thick and thin strokes found in handwriting. FHWA Series would probably be classed as a "neo-grotesque" font. While fonts go in and out like any other style, generally designers tend to prefer humanist fonts.

Clearview is good design. The problem with Clearview is that the use of the typeface was to replace the FHWA Series font on road signs, which means designing a font that can be read at speeds exceeding 70+ MPH. Clearview passed on being used for destination legends, but everything else the FHWA font was superior.

If you were to put Clearview on other instances, where legibility isn't key at fast traveling speeds, then I'm sure Clearview would work fine.

[Brandon]

^^ As far as I am concerned, the only reason Clearview even got that far is that those promoting it put it on newer, more reflective backgrounds.  Had the contest been fair, the FHWA font would've been on the same backgrounds at the same letter heights.

[Scott5114]

Graphic designers would say that Clearview is a good design, because it follows acceptable typographical conventions better than FHWA Series fonts do. For one thing, Clearview is a "humanist" font–there are thin and thick strokes emulating the thick and thin strokes found in handwriting. FHWA Series would probably be classed as a "neo-grotesque" font. While fonts go in and out like any other style, generally designers tend to prefer humanist fonts.

maybe I just grew up with Highway Gothic, and computer fonts like the Verdana (?) on this forum that, at low resolutions, appears to have a fixed stroke width... but damn do I significantly prefer them to variable-stroke-width fonts for "official" contexts. 

I've always wondered why these simple fixed-stroke-width fonts got labeled "grotesque".  its sociological connotations notwithstanding, "humanist" is a fairly good descriptor of the fonts with variable stroke width.  but when I think of the word "grotesque", I think of something like this:

As I understand it, the first grotesque fonts were also the first sans-serif fonts. People used to seeing serif fonts thought the new fonts were weird and grotesque in comparison. I think the term arose in Germany, which was still using Fraktur typefaces at the time, making the new fonts seem even more unusual.

[Duke87]

I think the use of the term "grotesque" to describe an artistic style predates its use as a synonym for "ugly". That said, if you trace its etymology it means "like something you would find in a cave", so the association is natural. Perhaps the suggestion is that a grotesque font is simple and primitive.