{{Short description|Early skeuomorphic design for digital interfaces, developed by IBM}} {{notability|software|date=October 2018}}
thumb|right|IBM RealPhone—an example of the RealThings design methodology
IBM '''RealThings''' is a design methodology for software interfaces proposed by IBM in 1998. It proposed that graphical user interfaces should be represented as skeuomorphs (images of physical real-life objects) in order to be "natural and intuitive, allowing users to focus more on their tasks and less on computer artefacts".<ref>{{cite conference|last=Mullay|title=IBM RealThings|date=April 1998|book-title=CHI 98 conference summary on Human factors in computing systems|publisher=ACM Press|doi=10.1145/286498.286505|isbn=1-58113-028-7|pages=13–14 }}</ref>
As a demonstration, IBM created interfaces for a softphone, a media player and an e-reader application titled "RealPhone," "RealCD" and "RealBook", respectively. No actual applications using the design language were released.
A lecturer at the University of Liverpool, Floriana Grasso, critiqued this design language for not clearly communicating software functions to the user. A telephone program, for example, forced users to make calls by pressing on a picture of a telephone handset, rather than providing an explicitly labeled button for this function. .<ref name="Ruin"/>
==See also== * Microsoft Bob
==References== <references>
<ref name="Ruin">{{cite web|url=http://cgi.csc.liv.ac.uk/~floriana/COMP106/12ps.pdf|access-date=25 October 2018|title=Metaphor’s problems: IBM Real Things series|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170830015037/http://cgi.csc.liv.ac.uk/~floriana/COMP106/12ps.pdf|archive-date=30 August 2017|df=dmy-all}}</ref>
</references>
Category:IBM software
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