Skeuomorphism is my favorite pet peeve with almost all new ‘digital’ ways of doing things. Everything from collaboration, communication, data stor

Peak Skeuomorphism: Online Events, Virtual Offices and Tinder

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2021-07-11 19:00:08

Skeuomorphism is my favorite pet peeve with almost all new ‘digital’ ways of doing things. Everything from collaboration, communication, data storage to crypto suffers from some form of it.

Something is skeuomorphic if it takes structural cues from something it's trying to replicate in a new medium that were necessary in the original. For instance, early versions of the iPhone UI had a skeuomorphic treatments in which its digital interfaces tried to replicate the characteristics of their analog counterparts.

Eventually Apple’s product designers caught on to the fact that this was a regressive approach and moved to building UI that is optimal for the medium. Skeuomorphism has its roots in projection, familiarity, reducing cognitive dissonance and the human brain's desire to take the shortest path to understanding and creating answers to problems.

In the age-old profession of Architecture, Skeuomorphism is generally regarded as amateur work amongst critics and practitioners alike. It signals an architect’s lack of understanding of the context they’re responding to, or intellectual laziness in formulating a response. The best architects tend to push the context they’re working with and enhance it rather than trying to impose a particular view on what it needs to be. 

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