For the people arguing over how long skeumorphism has been around in software design, all based on different thresholds of levels of "realism": Any graphical interface you can think of has skeuomorphic properties to some extent. Even a bare terminal window is (even if for purely practical reasons) analogous to the strip of paper pushing out of old printer terminals.
The bare concept of a buttons, mouse pointers and icons are all analogous to physical objects, which makes sense from a usability perspective since people mostly relate to new things metaphorically.
The idea of shaded and highlighted buttons on a leather textured surface, however, makes no particular sense from a material or metaphorical perspective. I recognize it as an aesthetic choice more than anything, and an ugly one to boot.
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For the people arguing over how long skeumorphism has been around in software design, all based on different thresholds of levels of "realism": Any graphical interface you can think of has skeuomorphic properties to some extent. Even a bare terminal window is (even if for purely practical reasons) analogous to the strip of paper pushing out of old printer terminals.
The bare concept of a buttons, mouse pointers and icons are all analogous to physical objects, which makes sense from a usability perspective since people mostly relate to new things metaphorically.
The idea of shaded and highlighted buttons on a leather textured surface, however, makes no particular sense from a material or metaphorical perspective. I recognize it as an aesthetic choice more than anything, and an ugly one to boot.