[lell]

Why is everyone shitting on this in the comments? It's a demo: you can't complain that it's hindering usability or enjoyment of the pictures when there is no context in which you might use it or enjoy the pictures. When I saw this I thought it might be nice for the website of a magazine like vogue or something: some sites are about decoration and style, usability can be at the back of the priorities. Just because it wouldn't survive A/B testing on the landing page of the most recent groupon clone doesn't mean it's not useful, cool or fun.

[_frog]

> Some sites are about decoration and style, usability can be at the back of the priorities.

I'm pretty sure this is exactly the problem people had with flash-heavy sites in the first place.

[wlievens]

If your site is for instance, much like the demo case suggests here, presenting fashion items, then decoration and style is part of the content.

[andrewfelix]

Style, decoration and usability are not mutually exclusive. As with many disciplines they can co-exist beautifully. Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings wouldn't look much chop if he hadn't taken style into consideration.

[tgrass]

Not to undermine the argument, but Wright does not prove the mutual inclusion of style and function. His buildings are notorious for structural problems.

[_frog]

Agreed, but effects like this are not style, they are a cheap veneer applied to otherwise poorly thought out designs. Fashionable kitsch integrated into otherwise unoriginal, uninspired designs.

[Deestan]

> Agreed, but effects like this are not style

No, it's a tech demo with artsy pictures. This is very obvious.

The site is also very bad as a computer game and a travel catalogue.

[damoncali]

And it won't go away, even when Flash finally dies, because people were doing it on purpose. Usability is not everything to everyone.

[harlanlewis]

It seems that many commenters are missing the value of a demo combining effects in new ways, presented in a new context.

There are many app experiences beyond simple navigation that ask for and respond to actions/events - many would benefit greatly by expressive animation. I agree the effects shown are more distracting than useful, but this isn't a CSS template for folks to copypaste. It's inspiration to experiment and discover the subtle, sophisticated, delightful details that make your app feel alive and exciting without going so far that it becomes a whirling and twirling abomination.

Use some design judgement. Don't sniff at the tech demo for being a tech demo.

[mortenjorck]

Animation is not at all mutually exclusive of good usability. Usable animation makes state transitions clear to users in ways instant transitions never could.

The perennial example is iOS: Almost all of the animation is there to guide the user through what's happening when the state changes. Left/right transitions make view hierarchies intuitive to follow. Expand/contract animations spatially establish the home screen as the very top level. It's subtle at times, but the animation in iOS is almost never decorative; it's only "fun" because it builds and reinforces the user's mental model of what they're navigating, making them feel in control.

[zwaldowski]

The one thing I was thinking about while looking at these was how badly one needed to be the alert view "pop" from iOS. Such an aesthetically pleasing effect that gets the UX metaphor across extremely well.

[Macsenour]

It's a DEMO. I agree with you... nice demo...