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Allow disabling of motion or animation

accessibilityfordevelopers.com

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Re: Allow disabling of motion or animation

#81

Post by ohgodplsno »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #64
Etheryte wrote: post #18

I seriously believe this is one of those issues where the browser should enforce the user's preference over what websites want. Rather than try and get every site worldwide to implement this consistently, having the browser disable animations based on the OS-wide configuration would be an easy win for everyone.

It's almost impossible to reliably distinguish animations required for a web site to work properly from animations and changes that can and should be disabled. For example, try to distinguish (from "definitely should be blocked" to "definitely can't be blocked without breaking things"): - An ad mascot hopping up or down telling you to click it - A loading spinner spinning - A progress bar - Information you're waiting…

If web developers would use the actual browser APIs instead of hacking around everything (manually setting the position of items at every frame cool cool cool), this setting would be respected.

See how it works in the Android world: anything that uses Animation, AnimationSet, ObjectAnimator, Compose animations, etc, all respect the system setting of animation speed (from 0 to 3x). As a developer, as long as you use the proper API, it'll work.

So, no, your ad mascot should be written with those APIs, and not using them should bring a massive performance cost that makes you think for a second or two about whether you're doing it right.

Re: Allow disabling of motion or animation

#82

Post by alwillis »

Vinnl wrote: post #6
greenbit wrote: post #2

Why does even the thought of 'disabling' animations have to be cast in the context of an accessibility issue? What about those of us that see no need of user interface elements that flollop about doing some kind of 'me Me ME!' dance, when we just want to get things done? I get it, if you're building a webpage maybe that's your artistic vision, and I'm specifically railing on OS animations, but the question still stan…

I don't think there's a single accessibility feature that is not also useful for a subset of people without any disabilities. Accessibility is just one way to introduce something, that doesn't have to mean it's not useful in other ways too.

Everyone is going to have a disability at some point, even if only temporarily.

If you can’t find your glasses, being able to magnify the screen comes in handy.

Outside in the sun? Features for the sight-impaired like increasing the contrast helps.

Re: Allow disabling of motion or animation

#84

Post by mariusmg »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #64
Etheryte wrote: post #18

I seriously believe this is one of those issues where the browser should enforce the user's preference over what websites want. Rather than try and get every site worldwide to implement this consistently, having the browser disable animations based on the OS-wide configuration would be an easy win for everyone.

It's almost impossible to reliably distinguish animations required for a web site to work properly from animations and changes that can and should be disabled. For example, try to distinguish (from "definitely should be blocked" to "definitely can't be blocked without breaking things"): - An ad mascot hopping up or down telling you to click it - A loading spinner spinning - A progress bar - Information you're waiting…

>that the next ad mascot will be written in JavaScript

The horror....

Re: Allow disabling of motion or animation

#86

Post by kazinator »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #64
Etheryte wrote: post #18

I seriously believe this is one of those issues where the browser should enforce the user's preference over what websites want. Rather than try and get every site worldwide to implement this consistently, having the browser disable animations based on the OS-wide configuration would be an easy win for everyone.

It's almost impossible to reliably distinguish animations required for a web site to work properly from animations and changes that can and should be disabled. For example, try to distinguish (from "definitely should be blocked" to "definitely can't be blocked without breaking things"): - An ad mascot hopping up or down telling you to click it - A loading spinner spinning - A progress bar - Information you're waiting…

If it moves spontaneously, it's unnecessary animation.

It is necessary for things to move only if:

- they are objects being dragged by the mouse (or finger in the case of touch input).

- they are the content of an animated image or video being played. (User preference needed there: auto-play or not.)

Re: Allow disabling of motion or animation

#87

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

mariusmg wrote: post #84
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost impossible to reliably distinguish animations required for a web site to work properly from animations and changes that can and should be disabled. For example, try to distinguish (from "definitely should be blocked" to "definitely can't be blocked without breaking things"): - An ad mascot hopping up or down telling you to click it - A loading spinner spinning - A progress bar - Information you're waiting…

>that the next ad mascot will be written in JavaScript The horror....

This would mean a) it will still animate regardless of setting b) there's a high chance it will spike your CPU load because your CPU cycles don't cost the authors of the ad money.

Re: Allow disabling of motion or animation

#88

Post by mcbits »

tomxor wrote: post #9
greenbit wrote: post #2

Why does even the thought of 'disabling' animations have to be cast in the context of an accessibility issue? What about those of us that see no need of user interface elements that flollop about doing some kind of 'me Me ME!' dance, when we just want to get things done? I get it, if you're building a webpage maybe that's your artistic vision, and I'm specifically railing on OS animations, but the question still stan…

I totally get where you're coming from, most employment of CSS animate and transition is excessive and reduces UX. The rule is that you should never have to wait for a UI animation - That said, UI animations done correctly, which are subtle and extremely short, do enhance perception of UI controls state and transitions. But I can't blame people for the broad hate towards animation on the web, so much of it is done po…

I think the best rule of thumb for UI animations is to keep speeding them up until users stop praising the beautiful/elegant animations. They shouldn't notice the animations.

Re: Allow disabling of motion or animation

#90

Post by awinter-py »

I have low-motion set on my android device and support for it is let's say highly variable

I also have no idea why the system bothers with most of the animations -- the material 'hero animation' where there are two different animations with sequential curves is awful https://docs.flutter.dev/development/ui/animations/hero-anim.... The 'stretch at end of scroll' feature was making people sick if you believe reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/qcadhq/the_ove...

These also take upwards of a second, which is a lot of time when I'm trying to get somewhere. I suspect they're being emulated on the CPU on older hardware, contributing to jank and battery issues

Some apps respond to low motion mode by replacing smooth motion with high-frequency flicker, which seems like exactly the wrong thing to do. I kind of wonder if this is the OS battling some framework like Lottie

Fancy 'different parts of the layout have different scrolling rules' in e.g. android google maps are deranged and make everything worse

Rip it all out and focus your energy on making usable software for people maybe?

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