For example, what is so bad about this?
http://skeu.it/image/24908403424
Because it reproduces a hypothetical real-world object, that not only doesn't make any sense (what is a sheet of paper hanging from a glass panel anyway?), but doesn't add any meaning to what this interface is supposed to do?
You can use skeumorphism where it makes sense. The problem is that login form has no analog in real-life, so in this one designer just went crazy for the sake of it.
I found myself giggling at this one along with all the other ones with things that make no sense like leather buttons and switches, and then I started to wonder: is it possible that the designers making this nonsense are actually representing an aesthetic totally decoupled from actual usability? In fact, let me get ageist here for a second—could it be that the designers making this nonsense are actually too young to have ever seen or used the real-world objects these skeumorphic interfaces are imitating?
I don't know about you, but I found some of my rage dissipated when I started to consider this just fashionable design. Yes, in a perfect world Apple would make appropriate (i.e. less) use of skeumorphism and therefore we wouldn't be seeing these kinds of ridiculous excesses from young designers, but something has to be the fad, and right now this seems to be it.
could it be that the designers making this nonsense are actually too young to have ever seen or used the real-world objects these skeumorphic interfaces are imitating?
You sure have something there. I recently felt like a dinosaur when I was explaining line ending characters to a young programmer who had never seen a carriage returning or a line feeding.
"it uses a lot of bandwidth" is exactly the problem that skeu-craziness is. Purposeless high-resolution backgrounds and animations waste storage space, bandwidth, cycles, and developer time. Time/money spent adding a fake leather texture is time/money unspent on functional aspects of a product.
So you're against textures full stop, not just skeumorphism? Because of course high-resolution textures are not necessarily skeumorphic.
> Time/money spent adding a fake leather texture is time/money unspent on functional aspects of a product.
Using a fake leather texture takes about as long as using some other texture or choosing a solid color or choosing which direction the gradient goes in... You're either spending time on design, or you're not. Even being minimalistic takes time and intention.
Skeuomorphism is a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues to a structure that was necessary in the original [1].
So the problem is exactly it: the designer attempted a skeumorphic design of something that has no original in the first place. The consequences then are that it doesn't improve usability, wastes bandwidth, etc. - just as in any other bad design.
You can use skeumorphism where it makes sense. The problem is that login form has no analog in real-life, so in this one designer just went crazy for the sake of it.
EDIT: Yay, let's downvote.