WHAT HAPPENS IF I PUSH THIS BIG RED BUTTON?

It sounds strange now, but just a few years ago, interface designers were strongly divided on the issue of buttons that appeared to be three dimensional versus those that made no such pretense.

Desktop real estate was at a premium then, so much so that if you could shave a few pixels off of your icons, it could mean enough space to add another button, and therefore, another feature. So why were some companies beginning to add unnecessary pixels to their icons, just to make them appear to be three dimensional?

The answer was: because they could, and because users liked the 3D buttons.

Today we take 3D interface elements for granted on our computer desktops, but because of slow download times, pixels now come at a price on the Web. Text-based hyperlinks are a freebie, so why are we going through the 3D thing all over again?

The mediated world does not naturally prove its reality to us like the real world does. Without the aid of illusion, when you push the virtual world, it does not push back. By giving us such weak proof of its own, and therefore, our own existence, the mediated world drains us of our sense of personal efficacy.

We determine what is real and what is not through our senses. The more congruence there is between sensory data, the greater reassurance we have that both the perceiver and the perceived can act upon each other. So, a little shading sends a signal to our eyes that says the 3D button is a bit more tangible than an old flat icon. When we push a button that looks three dimensional, that little difference heightens our sense of self efficacy, (especially if accompanied by an additional reality cue like a clicking sound) and that heightens our self satisfaction and happiness.
[Think I’m nuts? Does this flat rat make me a hypocrite? Click on it for more evidence of my claim.]