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Transitions and animations on the web are already abused by web developers enough today. The last thing we want is a browser API that automatically applies tran

Transitions and animations on the web are already abused by web developers enough today. The last thing we want is a browser API that automatically applies transitions to the entire DOM. Prepare for endless frustration as designers start implementing artificial 5 second delays while you wait for a pretty transition between two states of a page.

anewhnaccount2 4y ago
I suppose one advantage here as that it is might be possible to disable with a userstyle for power users.
mnd999 4y ago
When one company, that has a culture of incentivising new features over maintenance, has monopoly control over the web you get a lot of new features. The merits of those features is somewhat irrelevant.
- mort96 4y ago
  I once saw a Google talk about video codecs in Chromium. It included a section where they talked about the life cycle of a video codec. They apparently introduce video codecs with plans for deprecating and then removing them. Literally breaking all sites on the web which rely on that codec. That, to me, perfectly encapsulates their philosophy of introducing new features without committing to maintaining them. They don't view the web as something that's worth not breaking, they seem to only value the actively maintained part of the web which has enough resources to stay on top of Google's treadmill.
  - illiarian 4y ago
    > They apparently introduce video codecs with plans for deprecating and then removing them. Literally breaking all sites on the web which rely on that codec. It's even worse than that. They force hardware manufacturers to adopt their codec on pain of retribution: https://www.protocol.com/youtube-tv-roku-issues https://www.protocol.com/youtube-tv-roku-issues Drop the codec, oops, your devices are obsolete, there's nothing we can do about it
yread 4y ago
Hopefully it will just replace those .animate in jQuery with a technically better solution
maxloh 4y ago
I always found HN users hating new trends in the user interface design industry, like white space and transitions. Is that anything to do with our users' age group?
- RedShift1 4y ago
  No, it's the children that are wrong.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- von_lohengramm 4y ago
  Probably because HN users typically 1. are strongly/over-opinionated 2. are power users - most of these design choices are inherently less functional than alternatives 3. understand that these things aren't just "the way they are" but are intentional, explicit things that designers & co. want and will push for over how things used to be as well as the status quo
  - ImaCake 4y ago
    I put this in another comment, but, 4. we are on a website that espouses dense static design without animated transitions right now. Otherwise, yeah, totally agree. The modern web is infuriating in many ways. All praise to reader view, ublock origin, and vimium.
- sidlls 4y ago
  I am in my 40s, and so are most of my friends. But I'm dating a younger person (20s) and hang out with his peer group on occasion. So, this is anecdata, but I don't think it has anything to do with any age group specifically. The modern web and app space is just filled with minor annoyances that individually are probably fine but that add up to a sort of aggregation of frustrations and feelings of being manipulated that is hard to put a singular description to. I get this sentiment in both age groups that I have high exposure to. It's not really about hating new trends because we're just old and comfortable with how things are (or were).
blauditore 4y ago
I don't agree with the common complaint that transitions and animations are just aesthetic fluff. Done right, they give the user additional feedback as to what's going on, e.g. in the example announcement, zooming in on one particular video making it full-screen. This might be less relevant to power users, but imagine someone accidentally clicking somewhere and suddenly facing a full-screen video. With the transition, it's at least clear what action is happening. It's similar to buttons indicating their state (hovered, pressed, clicked). The main reason animations can get annoying is that people don't get the timing right (too slow), or really just use them to show off. Some even use transitions to gloss over the slowness of their system, which is infuriating.
- lopkeny12ko 4y ago
  > The main reason animations can get annoying is that people don't get the timing right (too slow), or really just use them to show off. This is it. 90+% of animations I see fit into this category. Apple is notorious for this [0]. The animations on Macs and iDevices are so painfully slow and unnecessary. [0] Just one recent example: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254333888 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254333888
matsemann 4y ago
What an uncharitable view of an entire profession. Is this really HNs attitude towards UX/designers? That if it weren't for them, we would have perfectly usable and fast apps?
- mike_d 4y ago
  Basically, yeah. Welcome to the struggles of being a late 90s/early 2000s sysadmin. When you were doing your job perfectly people hardly recognized you existed and they wondered why they even keep you on the payroll. The only time people consciously think about UX/design is when something horrific happens like the most recent Gmail redesign or the Netflix autoplay on hover.
jeroenhd 4y ago
No transition takes five seconds intentionally. What you may be seeing is artificial delay, something introduced to a system to give users more confidence that the system is working correctly. Instant responses for operations perceived to be complex cast doubt on if the operation was done correctly. Either way, you can disable transitions on your OS already if you dislike them. In fact, you should see this as an improvement to the current situation, as transitions bound to OS animation preferences instead of jQuery .animate() will suddenly disappear for you. Give developers a standardised interface they can use and they'll use it; give users settings for those interfaces and you can make applications work like you wish with the click of a button.

anewhnaccount2 4y ago

I suppose one advantage here as that it is might be possible to disable with a userstyle for power users.

mnd999 4y ago

When one company, that has a culture of incentivising new features over maintenance, has monopoly control over the web you get a lot of new features. The merits of those features is somewhat irrelevant.

mort96 4y ago
I once saw a Google talk about video codecs in Chromium. It included a section where they talked about the life cycle of a video codec. They apparently introduce video codecs with plans for deprecating and then removing them. Literally breaking all sites on the web which rely on that codec. That, to me, perfectly encapsulates their philosophy of introducing new features without committing to maintaining them. They don't view the web as something that's worth not breaking, they seem to only value the actively maintained part of the web which has enough resources to stay on top of Google's treadmill.
- illiarian 4y ago
  > They apparently introduce video codecs with plans for deprecating and then removing them. Literally breaking all sites on the web which rely on that codec. It's even worse than that. They force hardware manufacturers to adopt their codec on pain of retribution: https://www.protocol.com/youtube-tv-roku-issues https://www.protocol.com/youtube-tv-roku-issues Drop the codec, oops, your devices are obsolete, there's nothing we can do about it

yread 4y ago

Hopefully it will just replace those .animate in jQuery with a technically better solution

maxloh 4y ago

I always found HN users hating new trends in the user interface design industry, like white space and transitions. Is that anything to do with our users' age group?

RedShift1 4y ago
No, it's the children that are wrong.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
von_lohengramm 4y ago
Probably because HN users typically 1. are strongly/over-opinionated 2. are power users - most of these design choices are inherently less functional than alternatives 3. understand that these things aren't just "the way they are" but are intentional, explicit things that designers & co. want and will push for over how things used to be as well as the status quo
- ImaCake 4y ago
  I put this in another comment, but, 4. we are on a website that espouses dense static design without animated transitions right now. Otherwise, yeah, totally agree. The modern web is infuriating in many ways. All praise to reader view, ublock origin, and vimium.
sidlls 4y ago
I am in my 40s, and so are most of my friends. But I'm dating a younger person (20s) and hang out with his peer group on occasion. So, this is anecdata, but I don't think it has anything to do with any age group specifically. The modern web and app space is just filled with minor annoyances that individually are probably fine but that add up to a sort of aggregation of frustrations and feelings of being manipulated that is hard to put a singular description to. I get this sentiment in both age groups that I have high exposure to. It's not really about hating new trends because we're just old and comfortable with how things are (or were).

blauditore 4y ago

I don't agree with the common complaint that transitions and animations are just aesthetic fluff. Done right, they give the user additional feedback as to what's going on, e.g. in the example announcement, zooming in on one particular video making it full-screen. This might be less relevant to power users, but imagine someone accidentally clicking somewhere and suddenly facing a full-screen video. With the transition, it's at least clear what action is happening. It's similar to buttons indicating their state (hovered, pressed, clicked). The main reason animations can get annoying is that people don't get the timing right (too slow), or really just use them to show off. Some even use transitions to gloss over the slowness of their system, which is infuriating.

lopkeny12ko 4y ago
> The main reason animations can get annoying is that people don't get the timing right (too slow), or really just use them to show off. This is it. 90+% of animations I see fit into this category. Apple is notorious for this [0]. The animations on Macs and iDevices are so painfully slow and unnecessary. [0] Just one recent example: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254333888 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254333888

matsemann 4y ago

What an uncharitable view of an entire profession. Is this really HNs attitude towards UX/designers? That if it weren't for them, we would have perfectly usable and fast apps?

mike_d 4y ago
Basically, yeah. Welcome to the struggles of being a late 90s/early 2000s sysadmin. When you were doing your job perfectly people hardly recognized you existed and they wondered why they even keep you on the payroll. The only time people consciously think about UX/design is when something horrific happens like the most recent Gmail redesign or the Netflix autoplay on hover.

jeroenhd 4y ago

No transition takes five seconds intentionally. What you may be seeing is artificial delay, something introduced to a system to give users more confidence that the system is working correctly. Instant responses for operations perceived to be complex cast doubt on if the operation was done correctly. Either way, you can disable transitions on your OS already if you dislike them. In fact, you should see this as an improvement to the current situation, as transitions bound to OS animation preferences instead of jQuery .animate() will suddenly disappear for you. Give developers a standardised interface they can use and they'll use it; give users settings for those interfaces and you can make applications work like you wish with the click of a button.