Comment by systemvoltage | Hacker News Reader

Comment by systemvoltage | Hacker News Reader

IMO animations are a hurdle more than an aid. macOS has so many long animations that it takes everything longer. 300ms might not be long, but it adds up. For first few times, animations are cool. But the novelty wears off when you need to do the same action 80th time.

Animations regardless of the domain should be used extremely sparingly. It’s appalling that JS frameworks such as Svelte has this built in. It’s only going to encourage more animations.

I can only imaging how much faster macOS would feel if for example exposè had no animation. Forget about better processors and GPU, the easiest way to make the entire OS faster by 500% would be to turn off all animations. Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t allow us. Even accessibility settings for “reduce motion” just uses fade-in/out animation instead. I really don’t buy the arguments for animation “it gives context to where things come from and where they pop out”. I find that disputable, sure good for initial familiarity but painful the second time.

> Animations regardless of the domain should be used extremely sparingly.

Agreed. I once heard the expression "animations should be felt, not seen." This really resonated with me. For example, dialing the transition time down to 30ms gives the user the experience of something vanishing or the color immediately changing, but the effect is to soften what is otherwise the jerky immediacy of computers.

You can change the animation time from the terminal [1]. There was some awesome list on GitHub that had a nice script that changed most system animation to a minimum, but I can’t find it right now.

[1] https://osxdaily.com/2012/02/14/speed-up-misson-control-anim...

This is long gone. No longer possible.

In an ideal world every web app would respect the "prefers reduced motion" CSS rule, and take this into consideration with their front-end. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref...

Reduced motion != no animations.

Apparently, in MacOS, reduced motion is just the same except it’s a fade animation. More importantly, it takes the same amount of time.

The main reason I activate developer mode on every Android phone I get is because that gives access to the option to globally accelerate animations.

Turning them off entirely is an option but in my experience that can produce a few confusing results. It's livable, though.

I wonder if this is like the first someone makes a presentation with powerpoint or makes their first movie with imovie.

Of COURSE they add the fancy scene or slide transitions. (at first)

and then you learn that you should just cut.

Why do you think Apple hasn't learned that? They employ designers, artists and animators with decades of experience.

Similarly, why are experienced designers adding transitions to their site that people wouldn't add in their second or third site build?

Ha, no I meant the opposite -- people buy for the fancy transitions. They want a modern desktop. Also thin looks good in the store. so does a glossy display.

Ah, right on! Thanks.

I also think the way Apple handles animations gives people a sense of the OS being more organic and friendly and less technical and difficult. In the past, they did that with skeuomorphism, but people are more OK with their phone being a technical device. Still, they're continuing to communicate the underlying concept is that everything has a LOCATION. So menus move in from off-screen, they don't just fade in from thin air. Unused UI-elements move off-screen as well, so they're not gone, they just moved outside your view. The Dock is another great example of this, as well as the animations for opening apps or three-finger swiping between full-screen apps. I believe this makes users less confused and more confident in their ability to use the system. It is also important that Apple is very specific about which speeds and accelerations elements move at, adding to the organic feel and making the OS feel more polished.

Apple's big strength is to make people feel safe and welcome in their ecosystem, and they target people who are willing to pay more for that experience.

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