"Semantic zoom" is a strange phrase because neither of those words describe what is happening (in this article). Note that the demos mostly involve clicking rat

"Semantic zoom" is a strange phrase because neither of those words describe what is happening (in this article). Note that the demos mostly involve clicking rather than wheel/zoom gestures. The semantics of regular zoom are clear: scale+translate the viewport. The semantics of "semantic" "zoom" are undefined. It's really just a smooth UI transition between different views. Those views could be anything, and the transition could be anything. So it's not really clear where "zoom" comes into this, aren't we just talking broadly about nice interactive UI transitions? Sure, perhaps there is latent design space in using the mouse wheel / zoom gesture to navigate flat GUIs, but what is the accessibility story there?