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My favourite animation trick: exponential smoothing (2023)

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

#171

Post by cmplxconjugate »

verisimi wrote: post #162
baxuz wrote: post #156

This is actually a really good approach and a good proof of concept for an animation / easing technique. Reminds me a lot of Flickity: https://metafizzy.co/blog/initial-demos/ https://metafizzy.co/blog/math-time-resting-position/ https://metafizzy.co/blog/particle-to-slider/ https://metafizzy.co/blog/flickity-begins/ Especially this demo: https://codepen.io/desandro/pen/myXdej This technique isn't just useful for swi…

The cynicism doesn't seem that fair in this case. Re HN becoming like Reddit.. Perhaps there is a generic 'cynical feeling' in the air with technology, with feelings of distrust about the intentions of governments and corporations over their use of the profound technology that is appearing, and how this is being constructed with the intention to constrain and manage the individual, rather than enabling greater freedo…

I think maybe more that the users of this website, which is designed in a way that is intensely functional compared to other similar sites, just prefer less “useless” design features.

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

#172

Post by wizzwizz4 »

anon373839 wrote: post #118
bongodongobob wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think parents reaction might be due the amount of shit software with pretty UIs. In the last 10 years it really feels like software has leaned towards form over function. I personally miss, simple, snappy Windows NT type UIs that were a megabyte and didn't contain a gig of custom icons or hit the GPU to like fade a window or something. I think most people would trade opacity and fancy buttons for MS Teams to be abl…

That's a fictitious trade, though. Opacity and fancy buttons are computationally very cheap, and they aren't the reason for Teams's poor performance.

If Microsoft Teams were made in Windows Forms, it would not have the fancy look it has now, and it would be a lot faster. "The reason" is complicated.

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

#173

Post by faceplanted »

bongodongobob wrote: post #94
chefandy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like in this case, what exactly is "going on" that requires this visual delay? Nothing. It's a technical demonstration. The delay is also overemphasized to make the difference more apparent. > The this is the fanciness that detracts from solving the major flaw of these sliders: you can't easily tell whether it's off or on That's because they don't represent anything. Toggles don't always represent on or off, either…

I think parents reaction might be due the amount of shit software with pretty UIs. In the last 10 years it really feels like software has leaned towards form over function. I personally miss, simple, snappy Windows NT type UIs that were a megabyte and didn't contain a gig of custom icons or hit the GPU to like fade a window or something. I think most people would trade opacity and fancy buttons for MS Teams to be abl…

Microsoft teams doesn't load slowly because of the animations, you can turn all of them off if you mess around with the settings and your windows registry enough. It loads slowly because MS have a huge incentive to keep adding features and almost no incentive to optimise it because the software is almost always purchased by large institutions, half of whom have vendor lock in already, and imposed on the people who actually use it day to day, who have no power to change it.

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

#174

Post by ulrikrasmussen »

alpaca128 wrote: post #152
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

> Some UI designers think animations are good, but they are not Imho animations are not a problem in cases where they do not affect latency . For example a visual click feedback to tell the user that it was registered & is being processed makes sense, especially for situations where the task may take a while. For example Mac OS' "eject drive" button would benefit from this, it has zero visual click feedback while eje…

Completely agree. And in 99% of cases, an instant indicator is enough and you don't need an animation.

The few places where animation makes sense are places where it is natural. For example, smooth scrolling and scroll acceleration in touch interfaces have to be animated to work, and they actually improve usability by allowing the user to work less.

I think most modern user interfaces are designed to look great for people who aren't actually using them, i.e. in demos and in stores where you pick up a phone to look at. In that case flat UIs with smooth transitions and shadows will, to the naive eye, look way more polished than UIs with proper contrast and no animations. This is also the reason that TVs come with ridiculous default settings for sharpening, contrast and frame interpolation, not because it actually is better, but because it looks better in the store and therefore sells better.

But UIs that you use every day shouldn't look great, they should allow you to get actions done as quickly as you can think of them, and effectively serve as an extension of your thought process.

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

#176

Post by Philip-J-Fry »

bongodongobob wrote: post #94
chefandy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like in this case, what exactly is "going on" that requires this visual delay? Nothing. It's a technical demonstration. The delay is also overemphasized to make the difference more apparent. > The this is the fanciness that detracts from solving the major flaw of these sliders: you can't easily tell whether it's off or on That's because they don't represent anything. Toggles don't always represent on or off, either…

I think parents reaction might be due the amount of shit software with pretty UIs. In the last 10 years it really feels like software has leaned towards form over function. I personally miss, simple, snappy Windows NT type UIs that were a megabyte and didn't contain a gig of custom icons or hit the GPU to like fade a window or something. I think most people would trade opacity and fancy buttons for MS Teams to be abl…

I still love a nicely designed Winforms UI in 2024.

No weird colours or anything. Just mostly standard controls, unless it's necessary to create a custom one.

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

#178

Post by Philip-J-Fry »

modeless wrote: post #167
coldtea wrote: post #68

> However, this still looks a bit clumsy due to having a constant speed Does it? Looks much better to me, and preferred to waiting for a animation to be given more time to speedup while looking "smooth" (they seldom seem to be given the same time as instant or linear animations, do they? For some reason we have to be forced to enjoy them in half time). In fact I'd take the "instant toggle" in a heartbeat too. Real li…

The only problem with instant transitions is that sometimes you may not notice what changed. I would like to see a UI built around instant transitions but with subtle animations that happen after to emphasize the change. Like the new content shines, or does a tiny bit of grow/shrink, but not in a way that prevents interaction. There's nothing I hate more than waiting for long transition animations (looking at you, ma…

We've solved this problem already without animations.

You just highlight the data that has changed and have an "Apply" button to save those changes.

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

#179

Post by actualwitch »

baxuz wrote: post #156

This is actually a really good approach and a good proof of concept for an animation / easing technique. Reminds me a lot of Flickity: https://metafizzy.co/blog/initial-demos/ https://metafizzy.co/blog/math-time-resting-position/ https://metafizzy.co/blog/particle-to-slider/ https://metafizzy.co/blog/flickity-begins/ Especially this demo: https://codepen.io/desandro/pen/myXdej This technique isn't just useful for swi…

> Since when has HN turned into Reddit?

That has been happening for a while, but people are not talking about it because it's explicitly against hn guidelines. Gee, I wonder why.

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

#180

Post by hoelle »

globular-toast wrote: post #146
coldtea wrote: post #68

> However, this still looks a bit clumsy due to having a constant speed Does it? Looks much better to me, and preferred to waiting for a animation to be given more time to speedup while looking "smooth" (they seldom seem to be given the same time as instant or linear animations, do they? For some reason we have to be forced to enjoy them in half time). In fact I'd take the "instant toggle" in a heartbeat too. Real li…

I hate animations like that because they are intentionally slowing down the UI. I already clicked it, why are you spending several milliseconds to update your state? Animations, or anything else really, should only be used to improve things. Ask what the problem is, not what cool solution I should implement. It's ok to go to town if the page is artistic , like your blog, but if I'm filling out a form? Get your art ou…

Beauty is often worth a little extra time. I'd rather walk a beautiful trail than a paved sidewalk beside 6 lanes of fast traffic.

It's cool to choose the tools that appeal to your values. It's not cool to advocate for paving the planet in your quest for single-minded efficiency.

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