During my studies at the University of Applied Sciences in Salzburg, I wrote my Bachelor Thesis on the topic „Usabilty of Skeumorphism vs. Flat Design in modern User Interfaces“.
The theory was, that altough skeumorphic user interfaces might seem more cluttered at first, they still might be more intuitive, since the users eye is trained to light, shadows and depth from the real world.
To research into the topic I focused on using eye-tracking technology, to find out what elements are crucial for the user to get comfortable with the UI. Also the participants were given several tasks, while I measured the time it takes them to a) find the neccessary controls and b) fulfill the task.
The results were – altough not highly significant – indicating, that the theory was correct. Users did find skeumorphic UI more readable. But not necessarily textures and real-world metaphors – but rather the use of three dimensional space.
In retrospective this explains why Google‘s Material Design is gaining so much upwind since 2017 as it combines a flat and screen friendly interface with the three dimensional aspects that users are familiar with from the real world.
