Absolutely right. I even find that 300ms in UI animations is still too long, but like TFA says, it depends on how often that piece of UI is used. Great Raycast example.

Good post with useful info. The author doesn't discuss it but I like the momentum inertia (aka spring animation) of the dropdown example - a nice touch.

not to nitpick because i mostly agree, but the second example (scaling a button on press/hold) is so ugly and weird that it comes across more like a glitch than an intentional animation. maybe it doesn't fit as well into a (post-)flat UI world but i always liked the bevel-shade-inversion technique of old MS Windows buttons to simulate pressing them "down".

Ethics and design guy here-- I think this is one of the most, "purposeful" articles I've seen in forever if you don't mind the pun. (I'm from Utah).

I'm asking myself the question of fundamentally why UI designers are making decisions to include the, "tasteful delay" and its ultimately as the article points out prioritizing, "delightful presentations" for, "tools that ultimately serve the users purposes most effectively." I don't think I have to preach to a converted choir here about that but I'm reminded of Thorstein Veblen's famous book and I wonder; at a deeper level isn't misanthropic to reduce software to, "tools?" Lumiere created motion pictures and we told stories. We invented the interactive motion picture and we jerry-rigged into an automated office suite. Outside of the very sexy Alan Kay-Dan Ingalls fringe computer interfaces of all stripes descended from that very idiosyncratic paradigm.

I wonder what crazy shit Ted Nelson is building with Claude right now. Sweet fuck.

https://moglen.law.columbia.edu/LCS/theoryleisureclass.pdf

> Another purposeful animation is this subtle scale down effect when pressing a button. It’s a small thing, but it helps the interface feel more alive and responsive.

If you haven't watched the Half Life documentary, I can't recommend it enough. In it Gabe Newell talks about the way he wanted the game to be different from games that came before it in that you could interact with things around you so you felt like you were actually in with and interacting with this world. He then related it to a psychological concept (maybe associated with self realization or external validation) and how as humans we crave the kind of physical objective feedback as recognition of our existence and how important and valuable that is. Really a neat idea and whether or not the science is sound, there is something immensely satisfying about interacting with virtual objects and having them respond in a physical manner that replicates physical reality.

oh the policing of blog titles now, can't wait for an AI to neutralize any post that would otherwise stand out unfairly on HN's first page

If I could make one plea to people who program these systems, please take all necessary steps to prevent the following from occurring:

I find the button I need to press. I press it. The button animates to show it recognizes my action, but nothing else happens. I press it again and it works normally.

I really hate that.

Yells at cloud with visions of Windows 98 menu slide out animations stuttering on the barely good enough for the new OS pc! ;-p

If only UX/UI people spent their time optimizing their code rather than polishing their animations.

Sorry for this rant, but hell, the web, the apps, everything is so sloooow and bloated. Make it instant! I just want to do my things, not to wait for drawings to draw!

Am I the only one who dislikes off-angle animations?