Time to make digital products analog again (illustrated by clocks)
This is yet again one of those articles about UX inspired by Don Norman and his “The Design of Everyday Things”, but hear me out. The way he gives arguments for feedback in usability design still stayed with me till this day (it’s been 7–8 years since I first read it). According to him: “Feedback must be immediate: even a delay of a tenth of a second can be disconcerting.”
This means that picking one end of the stick should result in lifting the other end of the stick. Each device should react to the user’s action instantly. Not only that, but he also advocates for good mapping practices (where and how controls are placed) and I think he also had this 1 function per control knob philosophy (?) which I FULLY agree with.
When I look at technologies of the ye olden days, I immediately get jealous. I’m in awe of the simplicity of use because, as I said, each control button, lever, winder is tied to 1 function and gave us immediate feedback.
Exhibit A: The beauty of the mechanical wind-up clock controls.
Do you remember having one of these bad boys in your hands and how it all made sense? Remember how everything was easy to use? How each winding knob was tied to a specific function? One turned the clock dials, one the alarm dial, one the date and the best one was reserved for winding of the clock itself! The straightforwardness of it all!
You might say: “I’m booored. This technology is sooo old, give me something cool, something techy!” — and I would agree BUT, I think we’ve lost a lot of simplicity in our user experience along the way.
Fast forward a couple o’ centuries into the future and enter the LED alarm clock.
Whoa, that was a huge jump and I’m kind of dizzy now, but what’s this!? Where did all my ergonomic metal thingamajigs go? Everything went 2D and flat and I feel like I cannot play God and subjugate time to the power of my 2 fingers anymore. I am met with three tiny buttons: SET, UP, and DOWN… By Jove, the usability paradigm must have changed!
We are now in the world of variables, selectors and controllers. You now need to select which variable you want to change in order to make the change. You need to specifically “tell” the circuit board what you want to do and you need to tell it in a language it understands. This language is so specific, it feels like you need to get ready to get ready about the change you are about to make. We are no longer using our own mechanical bodies to directly influence and control objects around us. We are now stuck in the abstract “brains” of the circuit board.
What do SET, UP and DOWN mean anyway? They can barely go down and back up again! How are they informing us about what they are going to do? In Don Norman’s words: “there is no discernible relationship between the actions and the end results.”
Things are so bad, that these buttons can have two or three functions tied to them, and people can add as much as logical gates as possible so they can give us all the options we never wanted: set up to 3 alarms, change alarm melodies, display modes, display colors, brightness, use sound activation and I don’t know what else.
“I can’t believe you are whining about a simple LED alarm clock controls. Read the manual if you’re that dumb, jeez”. But I didn’t need a manual with the analog clock and that is my whole point! Plus, it was a lot more fun than these underwhelming flat buttons.
But, enough with these cheap plastic LEDs. A few ABBA albums and one Steve Jobs later, we enter the 21st century.
Wait… bring the buttons back! I want buttons again 😭. Bill and Steve, you have thoroughly disappointed me. Why is everything a screen and why is everything ON a screen now too? Wait.. can… can I like watch an endless stream of cute cat videos!? Everything is forgiven and I no longer care about UX. BYYE!
Relaaax. I’m just kidding (or am I?).
The animation above is inspired by my own Android Xiaomi OS. I can set my own alarm using wheels again! And what’s this? I have a dedicated wheel for my hours and for my minutes too. Plus, the only purpose of each wheel is to set the alarm. Horray for skeuomorphism! But wait, this does not look like skeuomorphism… It’s inspired by it, but not IT. Skeuomorphism Nuveau perhaps?
This UX design pattern is inspired by how things would work in the real, mechanical world. Much of the problem with the mid-century electronics was that we had an increasing number of options, but less and less real-estate for controls because electronics and devices were becoming ever so small. I think computer screens, and especially mobile phones have crossed this gap very effectively. Due to its fast refresh rate the screen has simultaneously become the content, the context and the controls themselves.
This offers a unique environment for UX designers as the principles I mentioned at the start: feedback, mapping, and signifiers still remain one of the biggest challenges of UX design today. I remember that we had our circuit board language moment with computers in their early days, but mobile phones were born into the visual interface paradigm and they have hence directly benefited from it. While skeuomorphism was a successful attempt to acclimatize early adopters to the computer and mobile phone, later in the game it turned out to be a banal and unimaginative design philosophy, but there is a big BUT here.
I think skeuomorphism can be used to lead us to something which is much more simpler and natural. It’s the philosophy of lifting the other end of the stick, witnessing the singular mechanical outcome out of our action. The UX design pattern used in my clock app is not the first app to use it and it won’t be the last, but that’s beside the point. I think it’s a way of thinking which can help us effectively and meaningfully navigate the challenges of digital design, without going into the circuit realm nor the kitschy banal.
And as my last deed for the day, I hereby name this thing Skeuomorphism Nuveau (it stuck to me), or One-Finger-Does-One-Thing-at-a-Time UX paradigm. Whatever you call it, I think it captures the ever elusive balance perfectly, between usability and function in today’s digital design.
