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Graduating out of Skeuomorphism
Last year the story of a man who duped investors into purchasing Chuck E. Cheese coins, by claiming them to be Bitcoins, went viral as readers marveled at the smartness of the scam. The story was a hoax, albeit believable because it is almost hard to imagine Bitcoin without thinking of a gold coin with a ‘B’.
Ever wondered why Bitcoin got associated with the image of the gold coin even though it is far from a physical coin? An interesting design concept called skeuomorphism might be the answer.
Simply speaking, skeuomorphism is the idea of representing digital concepts in forms similar to their physical counterparts. For example, the phone icon in the iPhone displays a picture of a traditional phone; and the email app icon contains a picture of an envelope. These subtle hints help users associate new technology with past experiences to be able to know where it fits in. While the phone icon is helpful for customers who have used analog devices in the past, does it add any value for customers who were born in the iPhone era?
In his best selling book The Internet Of Money, Andreas Antonopoulos explains that Bitcoin’s technology was so disruptive that it warranted a frame of reference for people to understand how it could fit into their lives. Our brains look for metaphors for understanding new concepts, and Bitcoin’s nomenclature and associated image were crucial in creating associations between the new crypto-technology and currency.
As Antonopoulos explains in his book, Bitcoin is a great example of skeuomorphic design, not only in how it created a frame of reference, but also in demonstrating the caveats of such a design. While Bitcoin became the hottest newcomer on the currency scene, the image of the coin stuck and created confusion about whether someone could actually purchase a physical coin that represented its digital counterpart. This initial perception as an investment vehicle greatly influenced the direction of the technology. Bitcoin started to be perceived as digital gold, which required miners to be able to mine new coins. In 2017, Bitcoin prices went up from $930 to $20,000.
