4 ms·
hmm -- the DOM time-complexity that comes from motion is not worth it in most cases. We have material design because google needed something delightful to comba
by awinter-py 10y ago
hmm -- the DOM time-complexity that comes from motion is not worth it in most cases. We have material design because google needed something delightful to combat IOS swipe physics, not because it's useful.
Scrolling is useful. Every other kind of animation is painful to serious users.
If anything, UI changes should blink for a second to show that they happened. This (and every other notification+delay) is a boon to novice users who don't yet know 'where to look' to get feedback about their change.
All delays are annoying to experts who just want to get to the next screen and don't need a supercomputer in their pocket to send emails & read proquest.
- macandcheese 10y agoThere are always places where animations can be useful, to users of any proficiency. Although the best ones, and the ones that work even for "serious users", are subtle and involve quick fades and the use of colors that refer to states (incorrect entry, success, etc.) rather than moving x/y position of DOM elements.
- lomereiter 10y agoThere are lots of not so serious apps, however. Also on mobile devices there are no keyboard shortcuts, so swipes and time intervals between taps present very natural opportunities for animation.
- andrewfong 10y agoIt'd be awesome if animation speed could be tied to some sort sort of global user setting -- e.g. how `em` and `rem` let web designers key font size to user preference. It's common in desktop OSes to let the user change things like the speed at which the mouse pointer moves or how fast a double-click is, with "experienced" users usually opting for faster settings and newer users starting with the slower speeds. Makes sense to do it for animations as well.
- macandcheese 10y agoIt'd be simple enough to have a few body classes (e.g. "animations-slow, animations-default, animations-fast"), and have it be a user-enabled setting somewhere that simply swaps those classes based on cookie. Similar to how some table-density padding / spacing options are constructed.
- scottmf 10y ago*{transition-duration: 100ms}
- radley 10y agoI must disagree. Developers / data people want the fastest, most immediate response to data. But for the general population, animations bring content to life, making the experience fun and enchanting. The key is knowing how much and how little to apply. We're in a new age for UI animation, so there's much to figure out.
- awinter-py 10y agoContent brings content to life. If someone emails me a poem I don't need gmail to do a dance. On the day I need a twitching paperclip at the bottom of my screen I won't be setting my time machine to 'future'. UI animations are like unskippable cutscenes in video games.
- wsinks 10y agoThat's the analogy! I really wish every single application had a 'turn off animations after I use this for X amount'. Or the OS level could have that. Ahhhhh. Zen.
- panic 10y agoThe point is not necessarily fun or enchantment -- animations can actually increase usability.