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My favourite animation trick: exponential smoothing (2023)

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Re: My favourite animation trick: exponential smoothing (2023)

#83
post #12

> Animations are not just a fancy visual thing, they help the user understand what’s going on. Instead of teleporting the toggle indicator to its new position, let’s move it smoothly Unfortunately it is, just a fancy thing that too often makes it worse or just focuses on the wrong thing. Like in this case, what exactly is "going on" that requires this visual delay? It looks worse vs the original instant response, why…

I think the map example is better. Without the animation, you have to figure out visually how far the map moved.

Re: My favourite animation trick: exponential smoothing (2023)

#84
post #12

> Animations are not just a fancy visual thing, they help the user understand what’s going on. Instead of teleporting the toggle indicator to its new position, let’s move it smoothly Unfortunately it is, just a fancy thing that too often makes it worse or just focuses on the wrong thing. Like in this case, what exactly is "going on" that requires this visual delay? It looks worse vs the original instant response, why…

Computer UIs need animations for the same reason they need shadows, gradients, and momentum: because these are aspects of the physical world that we already know how to interpert, so can be used "for free" to aid our understanding of the UI. Not using animations would likely be more taxing on our visual processing because nothing in the world moves discontinuously, so that would be a new thing to learn when using a c…

Got any research to back up that claim? I always go to the developer settings and turn off all animations on my Android phones, and it makes a monumental difference in usability, exclusively for the better. I did it on my moms phone as well, and she instantly felt it got faster, so this is not just because I am a technical person.

Some UI designers think animations are good, but they are not. They are a clutch that designers who don't know how to design good UIs rely on to indicate what is going on. We have never had faster computers than we do now, but we are collectively spending thousands of hours a day waiting for pointless animations to finish.

Re: My favourite animation trick: exponential smoothing (2023)

#85
post #61
post #12

> Animations are not just a fancy visual thing, they help the user understand what’s going on. Instead of teleporting the toggle indicator to its new position, let’s move it smoothly Unfortunately it is, just a fancy thing that too often makes it worse or just focuses on the wrong thing. Like in this case, what exactly is "going on" that requires this visual delay? It looks worse vs the original instant response, why…

“Accessibility > Reduce animations” is the magic trick to make modern UIs feel snappier and less distracting. I wish web UIs would respect it.

I was wondering if they even could. The answer is yes: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref...

My first thought was that the OS accessibility settings must not be available to websites without a permission toggle because the ad industry is just going to weaponize it and use it against people.

Re: My favourite animation trick: exponential smoothing (2023)

#87
Interesting that you got the idea to dive into animating a switch :)

Maybe you could help the user to better distinguish the ON/OFF states by also colorizing the whole switch element, not only that "disc" (as it is done in Vuetify.js, for example, using the "color" prop: https://vuetifyjs.com/en/components/switches/

Re: My favourite animation trick: exponential smoothing (2023)

#88
post #36
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss old school checkboxes for UI toggles. They're crisp and clear and don't entice bored people to animate them.

Me too, agree with you and GP. And I can't keep wondering why this opinion is so unpopular. Today's UIs are bloated with unnecessary animations (which adds latency). But worse than animations is that UIs are horribly inconsistent; took me a while to figure out those toggles should be clicked, not dragged; or: what is even clickable, how do I scroll, ...? I could go on forever, and probably so can you. Why do only old…

> why is our opinion unpopular?

I think other people do feel a vague sense of anxiety using modern software from not quite knowing what all the interaction patterns are. When you click that hamburger menu on the website, what will it do, exactly? But most people from outside the software world just blame themselves for “not being very good with computers”.

The problem is that it’s not fashionable any more amongst designers to use built in controls. Everyone wants to think of themselves like Apple, and build their own beautiful design language. Even if it’s just for their own website or app. And it sort of makes sense given modern apps end up needing to be built for the web, iphone, iPad, Android, and the desktop. It makes sense to tie all of those pieces of software together with a cohesive visual language and style.

Re: My favourite animation trick: exponential smoothing (2023)

#90
post #61
post #12

> Animations are not just a fancy visual thing, they help the user understand what’s going on. Instead of teleporting the toggle indicator to its new position, let’s move it smoothly Unfortunately it is, just a fancy thing that too often makes it worse or just focuses on the wrong thing. Like in this case, what exactly is "going on" that requires this visual delay? It looks worse vs the original instant response, why…

“Accessibility > Reduce animations” is the magic trick to make modern UIs feel snappier and less distracting. I wish web UIs would respect it.

I use this on iOS and it still leaves a lot of animations that could be sped up.
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