[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.