Comment by hankbond
1 day ago
This resonated with me, but I would have loved to see some positive examples as well. The tone did not read as a rant, but as someone that doesn't know too much about good UI construction, I did not feel like I walked away any closer to understanding what a North Star should be.
I did just this recently. I detailed the imperfections first, which were similar to this in concept, and then walked through the improvements I made.
If you're curious, you can see it here: https://www.thisischris.dev/projects/project-6/
Thanks for highlighting the "one element cross fades into a totally different one" example. That particular type of animation really makes an app feel ungrounded and unreliable to me, it gives a sense that the UI elements aren't really tied closely to the data and are just barely existing. And somehow I see it all the time across tons of apps.
The improved versions where the elements actually transform into each other, sharing the same visual real estate, is so much better.
Ty for the kind words! I completely agree with you too. Compose added a Crossfade modifier that makes it super easy to apply the animation to a content switch but it's often applied in the lazy way you mentioned.
Or if the author mocked out what each of the bad examples should look like if done properly.