Distracting UI Animations

Users complain about excessive, overwhelming, and distracting animations in web UIs, advocating for options to disable them or make them subtler and more respectful of accessibility settings like prefers-reduced-motion. Developers acknowledge feedback and discuss potential improvements.

➡️ Stable 0.6x Web Development
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#506
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Keywords

UX OK OS alistapart.com UI LOL animations animation animated distracting motion transitions accessibility slow annoying ui

Sample Comments

Fokamul Apr 24, 2025 View on HN

Web would be a better place without UI animations.

_dain_ Dec 22, 2023 View on HN

the animations are overwhelming. i don't want to see so much shit moving around on screen. they also don't respect the user's "prefers-reduced-motion" setting.

flowless Jan 22, 2014 View on HN

Animated transitions are really distracting, I hope there's a way to turn this off (and it should be turned off by default..)

SahAssar May 23, 2022 View on HN

Please don't. Animations should be added where they actually help the user, if you just animate everything you'll just make the user experience slower.

chris_st Aug 12, 2017 View on HN

Yes please to no animation at all as an option. It's incredibly distracting.

tbassetto Mar 26, 2014 View on HN

Same reaction here. This page would be so much better without animations at all.

pancomplex Jul 30, 2025 View on HN

Thank you for the feedback! We may have gone a little too hard with the animations. What browser/system are you on?

mtmail Sep 15, 2020 View on HN

Agree. Remove all animations. As a user/reader I don't need a 1 second animation when clicking through pages.

arommelaere Apr 9, 2024 View on HN

Thanks for your opinion, would provide slow/soft animations would solve this problem?

wtetzner May 8, 2022 View on HN

How important are animations in a UI? I typically find them annoying (because you have to wait for them).