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My favourite animation trick: exponential smoothing (2023)

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

#311

Post by dahart »

baxuz wrote: post #235
amarshall wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since when has HN turned into Reddit? Read at least the last paragraph of https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I wasn't aware of that fine print, but in light of that, let me rephrase it: Certain topics on HN can induce commenting behaviour among seasoned HN users often attributed to Reddit users, including, but not limited to: - being contrarian without fully reading, understanding or contextualizing the article or comment in question - weaponizing downvotes - being overly cynical, lowering the overall quality of the discuss…

There are indeed sometimes less than stellar comments, and some topics are more prone than others, those things are true. Yes people comment without reading sometimes, and yes people are contrarian sometimes. Sturgeon’s law apples independently to any group or site, regardless of the average quality there. But, it is clear the average quality on HN is much higher and not very comparable to Reddit.

That said, it’s not a good idea to make assumptions about behavior or why voting is happening, it lowers the overall quality of the discussion to state those assumptions or complain about comments, and it generally doesn’t work here to tersely acknowledge something to get upvotes. I don’t know what weaponizing downvotes means, but I haven’t seen much downvoting here that can’t be explained by comments being either wrong about something or rude about something.

In my experience, it does often help to patiently respond to contrarians without negative judgement and explain how and why you value good animation tricks, and what problems they solve. That will probably earn you upvotes much faster trying to repeat or agree with another comment.

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

#312

Post by chefandy »

James_K wrote: post #279
chefandy wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I think most users would prefer software that does stuff instantly User research feels differently, but with numbers. > These things almost universally degrade the interface and I've yet to see the actual benefit of them See my point about technical people and their usage perspectives. > When you think about it, that is the opposite of good interface design. Having been a professional software designer, I assur…

Actually I think you should re-read my comment. I'd also love to actually see the research you're talking about here. > I assure you I've thought about this. And explored it, researched it, tested it, prototyped it, interviewed people about it, built it, rebuilt it, and then did it all over again to improve it. Oh, sorry, I didn't realise I was talking to the world expert on button animations. So do users prefer quad…

> Actually I think you should re-read my comment.

Ok, done. Still didn't see anything beyond assertions based on nothing but your own preference, and countering things I said without any support.

> Oh, sorry, I didn't realise I was talking to the world expert on button animations. So do users prefer quadratic or exponential smoothing on their switches?

Of course I didn't say I was the world expert in button animation, but I'm far beyond the age where I feel compelled to pretend random developers' uninformed opinions on design are as useful as mine. Lots of developers get really mad when people point out that that their software development expertise doesn't make them experts in all other fields, but that's a you problem.

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

#313

Post by Asooka »

dig1 wrote: post #270

I don't want to be a party breaker, and the article is nicely written, but why are these animations pervasive these days? When I click a button in the real world, it changes the state instantaneously. It gives me an instantaneous feedback. Imagine you click the mouse button, and it slowly goes down and up. UI is becoming an art, but most people use computers to get their jobs done. And, to be honest, I still prefer c…

The animations are useful when you can't easily see the instantaneous change, but I'm with you on the slowed feedback. I think the best feedback would be for the slider to move instantly, but with a fading motion blur effect. So if you're hard of seeing, or blink, or whatever and miss the change in state initially, there is still an animation playing that you can see to know that something changed, but at the same time the button is already at its new state, so you don't have to wait if you are paying attention.

Or we can go back to normal checkboxes and radio buttons where the on/off state is obvious and no animation is necessary to help people see when they change state.

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

#314

Post by usrusr »

card_zero wrote: post #240
usrusr wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a touch sreen, chances are the finger obscures the state change, or much of it. When you are not super focused ("I don't trust this thing!"), it's easy to miss the difference between before and after states. The animation serves as a low-threshold confirmation that the pixels are not just decoration and that the touch event has actually been registered. Requiring the user to mentally diff before and after states w…

Why can't phones have mouse pointers? Drag anywhere on the screen (ideally not where the pointer is) to grab the pointer. Do some kind of multitouch thing like tapping with a second finger to click. Then you can see what's under the mouse instead of constantly prodding your fat finger into the object of interest. I guess that would be too slow, or something? Not simple enough?

It could only ever be good for some interactions, e.g. it would be terrible for when the screen is just three large buttons for super quick access. Mode switching would surely be awkward.

I think I remember some map apps experimenting in that direction, but I consider the locusmaps "magnifying glass" undisputed king of that hill (touch interaction for maps).

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

#315

Post by chefandy »

layer8 wrote: post #227
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…

> the expertise of seasoned credentialed professionals in the field Given how bad UIs in general have become, some scepticism over that expertise is warranted. To be clear, UIs weren’t all great across the board 20 years ago. But there was a general agreement between UI experts and power users on how a good UI with standard desktop controls should look like and behave, whereas now it’s a mess and there are significan…

> But there was a general agreement between UI experts and power users on how a good UI with standard desktop controls should look like and behave, whereas now it’s a mess and there are significant disagreements.

Details?

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

#316

Post by jalfresi »

chrisjj wrote: post #226
jalfresi wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checkboxes also have a fundamental dependency on the label to assist them with their affordance: a label for a checkbox should almost always be in the form of a yes/no question: “are you hungry? [ ]” The “checked” box is an affirmative, empty is a negative. A checkbox without a label is useless because it has no context. But I constantly see checkboxs without the question label. Think back to all those control panels…

> But I constantly see checkboxs without the question label. Properly so. Imagine every real-world appliance power toggle was labelled "Power?".

Real world appliances dont use checkboxes to power toggle

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

#317

Post by pxtail »

hoelle wrote: post #180
globular-toast wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I'd rather walk a beautiful trail than a paved sidewalk beside 6 lanes of fast traffic.

But would you still prefer it if alternative paved sidewalk is 5 times shorter AND you need to walk between same two points of interest multiple times per day, everyday?

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

#318

Post by chefandy »

eviks wrote: post #65
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…

> It's a technical demonstration So? The justification is still substantive. What would change in a real slider that turns real setting on/off? > delay is also overemphasized That's only true for those slowed down by a factor of 8. Otherwise it's not, I see the exact same issue in real-world sliders on web sites and in apps. > Toggles don't always represent on or off, either But they mostly do, add they do in this ca…

> So? The justification is still substantive. What would change in a real slider that turns real setting on/off?

No it's not. Whether or not a design accomplishes its goals is exclusively based on what it's trying to communicate. This is trying to communicate animation curves.

> That's only true for those slowed down by a factor of 8. Otherwise it's not, I see the exact same issue in real-world sliders on web sites and in apps.

What you notice in apps is probably noticeable because it was done poorly. In the vast majority of instances, these things are done well so they help your eye adjust but don't stick out as animations.

> But they mostly do, add they do in this case ("turned_on"). The other use cases would have different issues like the choice of colors (green is for on) Then you overly general description forgets to prove that slower and more confusing control (which some generic non-tech users try to actually slide by holding a mouse button and moving the mouse instead of clicking) is actually preferable because it "feels" nice to them

You're substituting assumption for knowledge.

> Also, these > seasoned credentialed professionals in the field. are the same people who put these garbage sliders in the OS settings menus (as well as maintaining many other common decades-old UI bugs), so color me unimpressed by their credentialed osmosis degrading user experience at scale (poor FOSS designs notwithstanding)

Most novices can't distinguish poor practice from poor practitioners from poor general concepts.

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

#319

Post by jdiff »

Shorel wrote: post #233
johnnyanmac wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think most people would trade opacity and fancy buttons for MS Teams to be able to load in under a minute. It's a paradox. If you don't make it look fancy, smooth, and appealing, you lose out to those that do. Even if you have a better product, that doesn't mean you can sell it on merits of being more technically efficient. Especially to more casual consumer or to business heads to make the purchases. besides, the…

We don't use Teams because it is fancy, or smooth or appealing. We use Teams because the company that pays our salary tells us to use Teams. End of story. And I would definitely trade opacity and fancy buttons for a client that loads and runs fast.

Unfortunately, you can't, because it isn't the opacity and fancy buttons making it slow in the first place. It's still a false dichotomy.

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

#320

Post by [deleted] »

injidup wrote: post #161
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…

Binary toggles are everywhere in web UX. They are almost always used where a simple dropdown menu with WORDS indicating the chosen state would be better. However designers hate that because then they can't write fancy animations on creamy toggle widgets. A dropdown with the words enabled/disabled indicating the state will always be better than a toggle with some subtle animation and colour signalling the state.

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