interface layouts with confidence in how they would be displayed
to the end user. This ability to map screen graphics to physical
dimensions was concurrent with the rise of a new graphical
interface style that directly mimicked the physical world. This
visual style, often called skeuomorphism, presents software
interfaces as a mimic of physical objects, using simulated
textures and shadow to invoke rich materials such as leather and
metal.
Although often heavy-handed and occasionally in bad taste,
these graphical references to physical objects, combined with
direct touch manipulation, reduced the learning curve for this
new platform. Katherine Hayles, in her book How We Became
Posthuman describes skeuomorphs as "threshold devices,
smoothing the transition between one conceptual constellation
and another.”^18 The skeuomorphic user interface helped
smartphones become the most rapidly adopted new computing
platform ever.^19
Today, skeuomorphic interface styles have fallen out of favor.
One reason is that we no longer need their strong metaphors to
understand how touchscreens work; we have become
comfortable with the medium. Another factor is that touchscreen
devices now come in such a wide variety of sizes that designers
can no longer rely on their design rendering with the kind of
physical exactness that the early years of the iPhone afforded.
The iPhone was also a bellwether of change for Industrial
Design. Smartphones are convergence devices, embedding
disparate functions that render a variety of single-purpose
devices redundant. Examples of separate, physical devices that
(^18) Hayles, Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics,
Literature, and Informatics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999. 17.
(^19) DeGusta, Michael. "Are Smart Phones Spreading Faster than Any Technology in
Human History?" Accessed January 20, 2015.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/427787/are-smart-phones-spreading-faster-than-
any-technology-in-human-history/.