The use of design elements that were once necessary in the original product, but now are purely ornamental. Examples include (as in the picture) "spokes" on a hub cap, or the little camera shutter sound played on digital cameras.
(h/t +Chris Ruhs, for applying the word to the clock widget I use on my smartphone, which looks like the flipping-numbers clocks of my childhood).
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Skeuomorph – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Historically, high-status items, such as metal tableware, were often recreated for the mass market using ceramics, which were a cheaper material. In certain cases, efforts were made to recreate the ri…
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LoL
Hey, I have a very large vocabulary. It's not often I get introduced to a new word for a cool concept.
An amusing article on skeuomorphism, which apparently some people in the web industry despise the the heat of a thousand burning leather textures: http://sachagreif.com/what-skeuomorphism-is-and-isnt/
While the click of a digital camera may be added, its important because thats how we know its fired- you can turn it off, but I believe it was added because the soundlessness threw the users of early models.
However the practice is at least 1100 years old (skeumorphism, not the click on digital cameras!) The Anglo Saxons would imitate goatskin water bladders on clay water vessels by shaping them the same, adding a stitching pattern on the edge, and using a comblike instrument to imitate the hair that covered the outside..
@LH – But there’s nothing that requires the shutter sound to, well, sound like a shutter. It could be just a little beep. In fact, in early digital cameras, it was. Only when little sound chips became trivial was it re-introduced.
And, yes, you’re right. That’s a great example. And I’m sure some band of Anglo-Saxon designers complained about the anachronism, too.
True on the click – but humans expect the click. Its sort of backwards compatability – that’s the sound we are used to film cameras, that’s what we are listening for, so that’s what they put on. Of course, those who don’t remember film are used to it because its on the first camera they owned! Likewise they have to put a sound on electric cars, because you can’t hear them. What sound do you put? Well and engine of course, because that’s what we listen for! It’s like the icons we use on computers. We talk of folders, because we started with computers apeing paper systems! When was the last time you used a 3 1/2 inch disk? But it is still the ‘Save’ icon in many programmes.
Anglo-Saxons were very fashion concious (believe it or not). For instance you had your sleeves long and tight , so you could push them back over your hand, and have the cuffs fashionable ‘scrunched up’!
Hmmm. So is skeuomorphism a fashion conceit, or a way of providing familiarity to something that’s new and unusual?