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Animation is unnecessary in most cases. Minimal animation can be added where the UI would otherwise be unclear, but other than that it's visual spam. Animation

Animation is unnecessary in most cases. Minimal animation can be added where the UI would otherwise be unclear, but other than that it's visual spam. Animation should be like a very thin layer of icing on a cake, but we're getting fed cakes with 4 inches of icing on the top. There is often little aesthetic restraint. Designers should be asking, "how can I remove as much animation as possible?" It spammy and also an accessibility issue[1][2][3], especially when the animation is designed to mimic physical motion (parallax, Material Design, etc.). To try and make computing bearable, I switched to i3wm and turned off all CSS animation in my browsers with Stylus. It's still too much. I also have a suspicion that animation is causing cognitive damage to users by regularly breaking attention. [1] http://simplyaccessible.com/article/animations/ http://simplyaccessible.com/article/animations/ [2] http://accessibility.psu.edu/animations/ http://accessibility.psu.edu/animations/ [3] https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/04/designing-accessibility-inclusion/#lens-animation-effects https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/04/designing-accessibi...

pavlov 8y ago
Animation in UIs is like corridors in architecture. If the user can’t get directly from A to B, you need to have something in between to carry them through the transition. An architect would never dream of adding extra corridors just because they’d be a nice place to display some framed art. Neither should a UI designer add animation for its own sake. I used to work on a UI modeling tool, and users were constantly disappointed to learn that they couldn’t build custom element animations in the tool (i.e. Flash / After Effects style choreographed view layout changes). When we looked at the use cases, inevitably they were looking to add superfluous motion to a view whose data was immediately available and which was displayed in a screen that already had an OS-level standard navigation transition animation applied to it. There was no reason to move things around when the screen was already fully rendered and ready for interactions. But I’m not sure if I convinced anyone: there is a generation of designers currently who want to think of UIs as motion graphics showcases and who assume usability is an intuitive quality that will be automatically be present in their designs.
- JoshMnem 8y ago
  I'd argue that UIs usually don't need something to carry through the transition, and that those kinds of animations can be dropped in most cases. I can see the use of animation in games, but for content-based sites/applications, there should be little to no animation. Users already know how to get around and what the various buttons do. Between the time I started using computers (early 80s) until a few years ago, there wasn't much animation and it wasn't missed. There were some complaints about back then too -- flying butterflies[1], powerpoint transitions, blink/marquee tags, etc. [1] http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex3/leaves.htm http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex3/leaves.htm
arendtio 8y ago
I wouldn't say animations are unneecessary. There are cases where they do add something positive. For example I see this open/close animation of yakuake [1] up to a hundred times per day since years and I still like it. I think the key to good animations is that they use the right timing. They are best when you barely even see them. They should transport a notion, but as soon as you see it clearly, you have to wait for your computer to finish rendering and that sucks. [1]: Terminal emulator which comes down from the top of the screen https://www.kde.org/applications/system/yakuake/ https://www.kde.org/applications/system/yakuake/
- JoshMnem 8y ago
  If I remember that tool correctly, it animates down without over-the-top easing effects. Those aren't as bad as animation that simulates physical motion.
- emilsedgh 8y ago
  I used to use Yakuake heavily. Loved it. It made me much more productive. Then I realized what was the reason behind it. And it's not the animation. Yakuake has a specific shortcut that your muscle memory can remember. Making Yakuake super accessible. It's like my brain has now O(1) to access my konsole. So I removed Yakuake and saved a specific shortcut for Konsole. It's much better. Because there's no annoying notification and the window is full screen. I applied this pattern to all my apps and I'm far more productive than I've ever been in any environment: F1 opens up browser F2 opens up pdf viewer F3 opens up text editor... (You can apply a shortcut to any application/window using Kwin -> Special Application Settings -> Arrangement & Access
- carry_bit 8y ago
  I personally prefer Yakuake with the animation turned off; it makes it feel really fast.

pavlov 8y ago

Animation in UIs is like corridors in architecture. If the user can’t get directly from A to B, you need to have something in between to carry them through the transition. An architect would never dream of adding extra corridors just because they’d be a nice place to display some framed art. Neither should a UI designer add animation for its own sake. I used to work on a UI modeling tool, and users were constantly disappointed to learn that they couldn’t build custom element animations in the tool (i.e. Flash / After Effects style choreographed view layout changes). When we looked at the use cases, inevitably they were looking to add superfluous motion to a view whose data was immediately available and which was displayed in a screen that already had an OS-level standard navigation transition animation applied to it. There was no reason to move things around when the screen was already fully rendered and ready for interactions. But I’m not sure if I convinced anyone: there is a generation of designers currently who want to think of UIs as motion graphics showcases and who assume usability is an intuitive quality that will be automatically be present in their designs.

JoshMnem 8y ago
I'd argue that UIs usually don't need something to carry through the transition, and that those kinds of animations can be dropped in most cases. I can see the use of animation in games, but for content-based sites/applications, there should be little to no animation. Users already know how to get around and what the various buttons do. Between the time I started using computers (early 80s) until a few years ago, there wasn't much animation and it wasn't missed. There were some complaints about back then too -- flying butterflies[1], powerpoint transitions, blink/marquee tags, etc. [1] http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex3/leaves.htm http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex3/leaves.htm

arendtio 8y ago

I wouldn't say animations are unneecessary. There are cases where they do add something positive. For example I see this open/close animation of yakuake [1] up to a hundred times per day since years and I still like it. I think the key to good animations is that they use the right timing. They are best when you barely even see them. They should transport a notion, but as soon as you see it clearly, you have to wait for your computer to finish rendering and that sucks. [1]: Terminal emulator which comes down from the top of the screen https://www.kde.org/applications/system/yakuake/ https://www.kde.org/applications/system/yakuake/

JoshMnem 8y ago
If I remember that tool correctly, it animates down without over-the-top easing effects. Those aren't as bad as animation that simulates physical motion.
emilsedgh 8y ago
I used to use Yakuake heavily. Loved it. It made me much more productive. Then I realized what was the reason behind it. And it's not the animation. Yakuake has a specific shortcut that your muscle memory can remember. Making Yakuake super accessible. It's like my brain has now O(1) to access my konsole. So I removed Yakuake and saved a specific shortcut for Konsole. It's much better. Because there's no annoying notification and the window is full screen. I applied this pattern to all my apps and I'm far more productive than I've ever been in any environment: F1 opens up browser F2 opens up pdf viewer F3 opens up text editor... (You can apply a shortcut to any application/window using Kwin -> Special Application Settings -> Arrangement & Access
carry_bit 8y ago
I personally prefer Yakuake with the animation turned off; it makes it feel really fast.