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Go nuts with CSS3 hover effects

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Re: Go nuts with CSS3 hover effects

#4
post #2

When the iPhone was released I thought it would be the end of hover. I know that's what I think about when I see something like a menu which only works on hover.

Always surprises me that developers let platform makers dictate what they can use and what they can't.

If developers chose to use stuff on the basis of what they as developers think should be used - and if that meant iphone users couldn't use them - guess who would ultimately win that battle? Not Apple.

IE would have died years ago if developers had adopted that culture en masse.

Re: Go nuts with CSS3 hover effects

#6
post #2

When the iPhone was released I thought it would be the end of hover. I know that's what I think about when I see something like a menu which only works on hover.

Always surprises me that developers let platform makers dictate what they can use and what they can't. If developers chose to use stuff on the basis of what they as developers think should be used - and if that meant iphone users couldn't use them - guess who would ultimately win that battle? Not Apple. IE would have died years ago if developers had adopted that culture en masse.

That would be right if this was about platforms but it's not, it's about interaction. If you can't hover then why depend on it?

Also, it's easy to add a touch event to do the same as the hover event, it's up to developers to do it. I was just thinking about the dependency of hover which need to go.

Re: Go nuts with CSS3 hover effects

#7
Touchscreen issues notwithstanding, hover effects like this are awful for usability. The hover overlay completely obscures the original image, making it impossible to read the snippet and enjoy the image at the same time.

The animation effect is more garish than anything, but this is a probably a personal quibble. It takes 200 ms for the hover effects to finish loading. I'd rather have the hover transition instantly, so I can spend less of my life watching text fade in.

The Chrome Web Store uses this to excess, with sliding panes flying everywhere. It looks great, but it's really painful to use.

Re: Go nuts with CSS3 hover effects

#8
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always surprises me that developers let platform makers dictate what they can use and what they can't. If developers chose to use stuff on the basis of what they as developers think should be used - and if that meant iphone users couldn't use them - guess who would ultimately win that battle? Not Apple. IE would have died years ago if developers had adopted that culture en masse.

That would be right if this was about platforms but it's not, it's about interaction. If you can't hover then why depend on it? Also, it's easy to add a touch event to do the same as the hover event, it's up to developers to do it. I was just thinking about the dependency of hover which need to go.

Exactly right.

The thing I don't like about hover is that at core, it's a leap of faith -- you're asking your user to mouse around blindly (like Myst, anyone remember that frustration?) until the page rewards their fumbling with some sort of UI treat. It's a symptom of inefficient and poor design.

(Having said that, these are lovely animations.)

Re: Go nuts with CSS3 hover effects

#10
Why is everyone shitting on this in the comments? It's a demo: you can't complain that it's hindering usability or enjoyment of the pictures when there is no context in which you might use it or enjoy the pictures. When I saw this I thought it might be nice for the website of a magazine like vogue or something: some sites are about decoration and style, usability can be at the back of the priorities. Just because it wouldn't survive A/B testing on the landing page of the most recent groupon clone doesn't mean it's not useful, cool or fun.
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