Pros and cons of animations in user interfaces

by Karel Thönissen

Use of colors, sounds, animations and sometimes even transparency give user interfaces a slick appearance. However, many applications use these techniques for no apparent reason. In our Tarn-project we live by our mantra 'Powerful. Simple. Robust.' So if these techniques make the application more user-friendly, then we will not avoid them. This is simplicity for the user. However, we will never use these techniques if it does not bring the user anything. That keeps the code simple and helps us to achieve the desired level of robustness. [complete article]