alt Hacker NewsI'm constantly hitting the wrong button because some animation shifted it, some dialog popped over shit, or some notification decided now was a good time to cover the thing I was trying to do. The animations make things feel sluggish. And they don't even look good.
The only advice that doesn't improve all UIs is the bit about filling in with white and adding black after.
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This stuff is user tested, many people prefer animations because they get confused if the UI changes instantly. For example if a button moves position when a sidebar is collapsed, the animation tells the user where the button has gone.
You are probably more observant and have good visual processing, so the animation is superfluous to you. Luckily it can be turned off on Android. On Linux I use XFCE which is almost instant - no animations by default.
In general, we only really notice the animations that go wrong, like the ones that are too slow or get in the way, but when executed by the book (like the numbers material design published, or perhaps even slightly faster), they are a valuable way of communicating intuition for how to use the UI to a user.
But yes, I can understand the desire to remove them, or at minimum drastically reduce their visual impact for e-ink
Moving elements on screens is viewed as slick but is also a strong statement that the website knows how it is best to consume itself and depriving the user of the control over how to interact with it. I think there's been a big misunderstanding from UX designers about what features users actually value over time and too great a reliance on short window A/B UX comparisons where the cool effect of animations has not yet worn through.
This is also complicated by the fact that _all UX changes are bad_ until the users get used to them. So if you genuinely believe you're providing a better UX you do need to ignore the initial wave of negativity - which makes it difficult to tell knee-jerk reactions from genuine criticism if you're glossing over the results.