I'll buy your point that ante- would be better than post-, but I don't accept
> And skeuomorphism is the deliberately outdated evocation of the old
- I think that skeuomorphism is one thing to the tune of another, but the
'other' doesn't need to be old or outdated.
The old calculator apps resembled physical calculators, which aren't dead yet;
the dial on 'speedtest.net' resembles the speedometer, which is still an
actual device (at least in my car...); some people really do have
leather-bound desk calendars. Those are all skeuomorphic, as much as the
floppy-disk icon; but unlike the latter, it's not about the old.
Skeuomorphism can be aesthetic (the leather border on the calendar app a few
years ago); or can be to promote - cough - affordance (e.g. the icon of a
spanner on a button, so the user immediately gets an idea of what it does).
Stephen's looking (or was a while ago, he may now be regretting starting this
conversation...) for a word to describe the subset of skeumorph icons (or
pictographs?) that are based on items no longer in common use.
How about obsoletograph?
On 18/08/2016 12:05, Jason Davies wrote:
But it's not postskeuomorphic...it predates skeuomorphism which gives you
*pre* or *ante*skeuomorphic And skeuomorphism is the deliberately outdated
evocation of the old, which is the opposite of what we are talking about...so,
logically, but absurdly, it's antiskeuomorphic or anteskeuomorphic. Good news
for those who struggle with spelling unusual words:)
If you want to get ethnographic (semiotics) about it, virtually every sign is
outdated. The letter a comes originally from aleph which was an ox. So I
suggest the term 'posthieroglyphic';)
On 17 Aug 2016, at 19:25, Sam - MacAmbulance wrote:
How about post-skeoumorphic if the icon relates to an outdated real-world
representation of a computer element.
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Sam
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On 17 Aug 2016, at 19:17, Ben Rubinstein <[email protected]> wrote:
With all respect to Gilly's grandson, that's not quite right. At least, the
term may have evolved to have that meaning in Sydney, but that's not how
it's used by user experience practitioners / interface designers here.
At least in the UK/US, affordance refers to the perceivable properties of an
element, especially with respect to the actions you can take with it. (The
term is corrupted from use in other disciplines - it should really be
"perceived affordance" or similar - but I won't go into that.)
So the icon of a floppy disk is an affordance only to the extent that we've
all been trained to recognise that clicking a button with that icon will
save our current document (even those too young to have ever used an actual
floppy disk). But the term applies equally well to any other clear and
obvious control, even if it doesn't implicitly refer to something very old
(e.g. airplane icon on the button to select airplane mode) or indeed refer
to something concrete at all (e.g. the reload icon of a circular arrow). Or
indeed to a button with the word "Save" on it.
I don't know if there is a word with the meaning that Stephen actually
wanted - an opportunity to coin one! The nearest I can think of is
"anachronistic", but that's not quite right - there's nothing wrong with
these icons, it's just that their derivation relates to something historic.
Let us know what you come up with....
Ben
On 15/08/2016 09:50, Gillian Snoxall wrote:
Hi Stephen,
I put your question to my grandson (who was an Apple Genius in Sydney), and
he immediately came up with “affordance” as the word you are looking for.
Sounds crazy to me, but he insists that that is the technical term to
describe the use of icons depicting things that no longer exist, in modern
applications.
Gilly
On 13 Aug 2016, at 15:06, [email protected] wrote:
… describe icons used in modern applications that show items that are
obsolete or dated and not used for the task in hand?
For example, at work we are quickly phasing out flatbed scanners and very
strongly encourage people to use phones and tablets to photograph
documents and send them to us. Our new interface has a “Send document”
button which shows a flatbed scanner!
The latest MS Word (for Windows) has a floppy disc icon to click which
saves your work. Neither of the two guys I work with have ever seen or
used a 3.5” floppy disc.
The generic icon used for a storage device is frequently a hard disc even
when the device has Solid State storage.
And will the same soon apply to the icon for a camera?
Just idle Saturday wondering.
Stephen
"Technology is the knack of rearranging the world so that we don't have to
experience it" - Max Frisch
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