I didn’t know skeuomorphic bias was a thing until Tuesday, but now I know what it is, I see it everywhere.
According to Wikipedia, Skeuomorphic bias is “a cognitive and design tendency to rely on familiar, pre-existing physical metaphors when creating or adopting new technologies, even when those physical constraints are no longer necessary”.
What that means in plain English is that people redesign things based on what they already know and are familiar with, rather than starting with a blank canvas and exploring what’s possible.
We see it with our customers who want to add AI on top of existing broken processes, and then wonder why things haven’t improved.
I get it, I’ve done it myself in the past. But now I’m aware of it, I can avoid it in the future.
Thanks to Llewelyn Constant for introducing me to the term at the techUK AI Adoption Coalition event. That insight alone was worth the price of admission.
