<story><title>What skeuomorphism is (and isn&apos;t)</title><url>http://sachagreif.com/what-skeuomorphism-is-and-isnt/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>majormajor</author><text>&quot;It helps tell these apps apart (“Find My Friends? Oh, right, the one with leather!”).&lt;p&gt;It makes the apps more approachable (“Hmm, this looks just like my real-world address book, it can’t be much harder to use”).&quot;&lt;p&gt;Honest question: are these two things really issues? I&apos;ve just never encountered the level of non-technical user that would be lost but for those particular touches. And I know there&apos;s a huge amount of selection bias in there, but I think usability/distinctiveness can be achieved &lt;i&gt;without&lt;/i&gt; kitschy textures or creating your own set of UI elements.&lt;p&gt;If anyone has more links on it actually helping new users, I&apos;d love to see them. The reasons just sound like post-hoc rationalizations to me. Especially because realistic/skeuomorphic/what-have-you skins have gone in and out of fashion over the years and I don&apos;t recall complaints that, say, iTunes looked less &quot;just like&quot; a CD player than the old System 7.5 CD player app.&lt;p&gt;(And honestly, in the few minutes I played with the Lion Address Book out of curiosity, I felt like I was missing something big about how it worked. That one in particular seems like a case of things getting more confusing because it presents a physical metaphor that doesn&apos;t really fit the digital version.)</text></comment>
<story><title>What skeuomorphism is (and isn&apos;t)</title><url>http://sachagreif.com/what-skeuomorphism-is-and-isnt/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>crazygringo</author><text>I think this distinction is important, just so people are using the same vocabulary.&lt;p&gt;But genuine question: is there another word we can use which means semi-photorealistic leather, stitching, physically textured, etc. interface? Usually with all that being largely gratuitous?&lt;p&gt;In other words, if we&apos;re not bashing skeuomorphism, what is the name of the thing we&apos;re meaning to bash instead? :)</text></comment>