Magic Cap vs Skeuomorphism
マジックキャップ / スキューモーフィズム
Magic Cap comes from Platform Screen Languages and Skeuomorphism from UI Expression. One is aesthetic and the other style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Magic Cap
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The interface General Magic put on its communicating handhelds, running on the Motorola Envoy and the Sony Magic Link. Instead of imitating single objects it imitates a place, opening on an Office where a telephone, a Rolodex, a notepad and a calendar sit on a desk, with a wall clock, in and out boxes and a filing cabinet behind it. From there a Hallway, furnished and hung with pictures, leads to the Game Room, the Living Room, the Storeroom and the Control Room.
Skeuomorphism
Borrows cues from real materials and tools to make unknown interactions understandable. It names the principle, so Aqua and Brushed Metal are what the principle looked like when one company shipped it.
| Magic Cap | Skeuomorphism | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1994–1998 | 2000s–2010s |
| Family | Platform Screen Languages | UI Expression |
| Kind | Aesthetic | Style |
| Cues | An opening screen where a telephone, a Rolodex, a notepad and a calendar sit on a desk / A wall clock, in and out boxes and a filing cabinet drawn on the wall behind that desk / Movement between rooms goes through a hallway that is itself furnished and hung with pictures / Line drawings on a coarse grayscale display, touched directly with a stylus rather than a finger | Leather, metal, paper / Dimensional shadows / Real-world metaphors / Fine textures |
| Best used for | Designing a handheld for first time users where tools are handed out as rooms rather than as a list of features · Building period art for a mid 1990s handheld where the screen contents have to hold up on their own | Explaining new interactions through familiar tools · Crafted, tactile experiences |
| Type | Treat type as a nameplate inside the drawing. Name the rooms and the objects briefly and do not fall back on list headings. | A humanist face suited to the purpose |
| Composition | Make the whole screen one place. Chain the desk surface, the wall behind it, the hallway outside and the next room in that order. | Adopt the structure of the real tool |
| Material | Draw rather than photograph. Show each object from the front and give thickness and shadow only to the things that can be pressed. | Precision texture only where it serves function |
| Caution | Every extra room and hallway pushes the tools further away, so count the round trips before committing to a spatial metaphor. | Ornament must not bury the interaction. Expect generations who don't share the metaphor. |