Skeuomorph, a Carried Over Nonfunctional Design Element

Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.

Hello, how are you doing?

This is Eric Miles, calling from New Jersey, Raleigh, New Jersey.

Welcome to the show. What’s up?

So the reason I’m calling is I actually had a question instead of a, you know,

The question was I was looking for a word that I’d heard a number of years back,

But I sort of since then sort of got lost,

And I sort of tried to find the word again, but I haven’t been able to.

And the word’s related to, it’s basically a word that is something that’s no longer needed

Or something that’s obsolete, but it’s still simulated and used on iTunes.

And the example that I had was sort of like rivets on jeans and things like this.

But, you know, I read an article a number of years about tools that were going obsolete.

And there’s all these tools that are no longer used.

And the article just gone over, you know, a number of different tools.

And eventually it moved into, you know, rivets and things like this that are obsolete, but as an example of something that isn’t used anymore either.

Yeah, you know, you were talking about the rivets on jeans.

When they were introduced in the late 19th century by this Latvian immigrant, Jacob Davis, who was working with a guy named Levi Strauss, what they were doing was making these heavy-duty work clothes for miners and cowboys, and they reinforced those pants at places where they were more likely to fall apart, particularly the pockets.

You know, if you’re a miner working underground and you’re putting things in your pockets or tools, then they might be more likely to tear there.

That outdated design element that no longer serves a useful purpose, I’m hoping that the term you’re looking for is skeuomorph.

Does that sound familiar?

Yes, it does.

Okay.

That’s why I couldn’t remember the word because it’s a very unusual word.

I guess we should spell this word.

It’s S-K-E-U-O-M-O-R-P-H, skeuomorph.

And another example that I like to use is the auditory skeuomorph on your phone.

You know, a lot of phones, when you take a photo with the camera,

It still makes that single lens reflex camera noise that is completely useless.

You don’t really need it, right?

But it still sounds like that old-fashioned camera.

And there are lots of different ones like that.

I’m thinking of stickies, at least on my computer.

You know, I have these little Post-it notes that aren’t really Post-it notes.

They’re just part of the software.

But the ones in software are a little different because those were intentional.

They weren’t a design change through generations of an item that merely becomes decorative.

These were intentionally meant to mimic.

So when we talk about copying and pasting or desktops and so forth, that was something decided, somebody decided to do that.

Or that little floppy disk.

Yeah, but when we talk about, for example, ceramic pots that are made to look like baskets that are woven, that’s a scuomorph.

Okay, that is the word, and that’s fascinating.

So I mean, I guess there’s a host of uses now.

For some reason, I thought it was just for physical objects, but now I realize it’s actually for even the virtual world as well.

So that even makes it more fascinating and more even more applicable.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Yeah, our pleasure. Take care.

Okay, and have a nice day. Thank you.

Sure thing.

Bye.

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