Here are a few good skeuomorphs, or outdated aesthetic elements: We still refer to the ticking of a clock, even though we’re surrounded by digital timekeeping devices, and the kids are working hard for those washboard abs when they don’t even know what a washboard is! This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Even More Skeuomorphs”
Well, the emails keep rolling in about skeuomorphs, Grant. You remember we talked about those.
Yes, these are the design features that stick around even though we don’t need them anymore.
Like the floppy disk icon on the save button in your word processor.
Right. Who has floppy disks anymore?
Nobody I know.
Well, we got a great email from Diana Denny from Indianapolis. She has a job at the Saturday Evening Post there, and she’s got the coolest task right now. She’s updating a database of cartoons.
Oh.
So she’s going through all those, and she keeps running across skeuomorphs. In one of them, a mother is reading bedtime stories to a child. There’s a digital clock on the nightstand, and the little boy asks, “Mommy, what does TikTok mean?”
Oh, very good.
That’s right.
How about that?
And then the other one is great. The grandpa and grandson are watching an ad on TV announcing, “Get washboard abs.” And there’s a thought bubble above the boy’s head that says, “What’s a washboard?” And there’s one above Gramps’ head going, “What are abs?”
Those are both perfect.
What have you come across lately in your work that has to do with language?
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