Key Takeaways

• Skeuomorphism initially helped users transition from physical to digital interfaces
• Modern digital products no longer need to mimic their physical predecessors
• Digital signage should embrace its unique capabilities rather than replicating notice boards

Topics

• Product Design
• User Experience
• Digital Transformation

Transcript

Skeuomorphism is an interesting concept. Not everyone will be familiar with that. I think it became quite prominent in the early days of the iPhone through the Apple designer, Johnny Ive. When they put some of the original native apps onto the iPhone, like Notes and Contacts, they took a skeuomorphic approach to the design. So what they basically did was replicate the paper version of those products as digital assets. And that helped people become more familiar with their function and their form, even though as a digital asset it was completely unnecessary to make it look like paper. So skeuomorphism is typically what a human tends to do when they try and take the real life and make that digital. We've seen that with the web and with phones. We also see it with screens. So if you look at a classic notice board, you've got bits of paper printed out and stuck all over the place. And then when we look at how some of our customers are setting up their screens, they're replicating that form. They're putting zones everywhere, putting lots of different information up around. And it's basically an internet-connected notice board, which isn't really leaning into the medium. Now, if you look at the products that Apple pushes out today, those same products, Notes and Contacts, they don't look anything like an old Rolodex anymore. And that's because the audience has become educated and has seen that actually the digital product can do so many more features. We don't need to go back to the old way. And I think that we're at the same point now with screens. We just need to educate the audience on the medium more. And that's what we're trying to do here.