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Comment by layer8 | Hacker News Reader

I think we need a word for “buttons look like buttons”, as opposed to “the Contacts app looks like a real-world leather-cladded address book” skeuomorphism. I’m seeing “skeuomorphism” increasingly used for the former, where people mostly mean “not flat design”, whereas originally it meant only the latter.

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Ideomorphic seems like it would work for that.

Turns out it's actually already a word: having the proper form or shape —used of minerals whose crystalline growth has not been interfered with

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/idiomorphic

That seems to fit amazingly well here too.

> I think we need a word for “buttons look like buttons”, as opposed to “the Contacts app looks like a real-world leather-cladded address book” skeuomorphism.

Likely related to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance#As_perceived_action..., but it's a jargon word most tech people and others don't know, and it creates debates about what it means among those that do know it.

I usually say something like it should be obvious it's clickable, or obvious what it does, when it comes up.

Affordances is a more general term, not necessarily purely visual, or even visual at all (it can be tactile, or auditory, etc.). It doesn’t denote a particular visual design, and full-blown skeuomorphic elements would also exhibit affordances. But yes, it approaches the heart of the problem.

Signifiers? https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/94265/whats-the-diffe...

> Affordances are what an object can do (truth). Perceived affordances are what one thinks an object can do (perception). Signifiers make affordances clearer (closing the gap between truth and perception). Signifiers often reduce number of possible interpretations and/or make intended way of using an object more explicit.

> A grey link on the screen might afford clicking (truth). But you might perceive it just as a non-interactive label (perception). Styling it as a button (background, shadow etc.) is a signifier that makes it clearer that the link can be clicked.

I don't think there's any more widely known terms here, and not any used within general tech audiences. I'd like it if there was a useful shorthand too but devs/users/clients are probably going to stick with e.g. "I couldn't tell that was a button" because the above have failed to catch on.

"Visual cues" feels accurate enough. I immediately understand "Buttons should look like buttons".

Thanks. Signifiers looks like a perfect fit here since they are elements which signify their affordance. It should ideally get more mainstream instead of someone inventing a new word.

Yeah, I find it interesting these words haven't become more mainstream though when they've been around for a while, and maybe that ship has sailed. They don't resonate? The definitions are too complex? (they often cause debates) They're not guessable? They don't shorten what you mean enough? ("it should look more like a button" isn't much longer than "it's lacking signifiers" to be worth the jargon) I see people drop "afford/affordance" into replies occasionally but most people don't know what it means and it rarely adds anything.

"Skeuomorphism" has caught on. It's not guessable but then it saves quite a few words so helps with communication. It probably got picked up by some tech news/blog sites and reached critical mass because skeuomorphism vs flat design resonates with people.

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