By Dominic Klopsch – Co-Founder TIVAN Consulting
In this Article, you will learn about how Skeuomorphism can help us to increase adoption of Web3, what it actually means and how it is used as a principle! So let’s dive right into it!
„Skeuomorphism“ – make new things look like you know them
Skeuo-What? Sounds like gibberish? Well let me explain why Skeuomorphism can help us with adoption of Web3!
Skeuomorphism is a word you can use for two things:
1. You can use it to seem like you’re super smart and impress your friends or be cocky ❌
2. You can understand the principle behind it and think of clever ways to use this knowledge ✅
Let’s focus on the second use-case
Basically, skeuomorphism (what a word) is a term that is regularly used in graphical user interface design. It describes the appearance of (digital) items that resemble or mimic their real-world counterparts. Probably the most famous example is the recycle bin icon which everyone of us has used. ?️ ?️ It’s intuitive. You see it and you that this is for trash because you know that item from your real-world experience.
But there’s more
In the early days of the iPhone, many app icons used skeuomorphic images such as the newsstand app. In iOS 6, it really did look like a newspaper stand. And the Notes app icon actually still looks like a notebook.
If you check out current day app icons, this is mostly not the case anymore. The reason is, that we’ve gotten used to navigating our phones and know by heart how to work it.
? If we transfer this into the #NFT– and #Web3-space (yeah, finally), it becomes clear that using a skeuomorphic approach, is a great way to onboard people that are currently standing on the sidelines. Skeuomorphism can help us to increase adoption of Web3! Talking consistently in technical terms and using unfamiliar designs or complex processes is exactly the opposite of this. And you can already see, that established companies have figured this out. Many companies start adopting the term „digital collectible“ rather than NFT. And although this might not be the same, it clearly helps to ease the onboarding of new users.
To sum it up
Skeuomorphism however has been receiving a lot critique as well in the last years. However, in my opinion it is one of the most important basic principles when thinking about mass adoption and at it’s core, for me this just means making things easily accessible. Easy enough for my mum to understand what I’m talking about all the time. In my opinion, Skeuomorphism can help us to increase adoption of Web3 in a massive way, so let’s try to use this principle more often!
❓ What do you think is a great example for this approach? I immediately have to think of the new Starbucks #Loyalty Program.
If you want to learn more, check out the other Insights-Articles!
