Here's one practical benefit: the UI should make it obvious that your click did successfully register, and an animation does that because it's eye-catching.
But the other side of the coin is that, because it is eye-catching, animation can be distracting or annoying.
Adding animation to your UI is like adding salt to your cooking: it's going to be pretty bland without it, but you can also ruin things by going overboard.
Most people that complain about these things don't even realize how much of it is integrated into their daily lives and workflows because it's too natural to notice. You don't need experience to see when someone's done a shitty job, though; just like any other tool, inexperienced people often see poor outcomes as an indictment of a technique, tool, or approach when the practitioner is to blame.
I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. Yes, animations are useful sometimes, but in at least 90% of cases they make the experience worse. If animations were so important and integrated everywhere then why didn't I notice any change when enabling "reduce animations" on all my devices, other than everything being suddenly faster?
> inexperienced people often see poor outcomes as an indictment of a technique, tool, or approach when the practitioner is to blame.
Or they simply realized that so many practitioners are to blame that the distinction barely matters anymore.
> Yes, animations are useful sometimes, but in at least 90% of cases they make the experience worse. If animations were so important and integrated everywhere then why didn't I notice any change when enabling "reduce animations" on all my devices, other than everything being suddenly faster?
You're confidently saying it makes the experience worse but you said you didn't notice a difference when it went away? There's a lot of data out there that says otherwise. Once again, developers use of interfaces differs from regular users as much as professional cooks use of kitchen equipment differs from home cooks. It's very different.
> Or they simply realized that so many practitioners are to blame that the distinction barely matters anymore.
Sorry, no. Most shitty software design is done by developers that assemble interfaces based on their whim, most of the rest are done by developers trying to mimic what they think a designer might do (which most developers mistake for design,) and the small remainder are from either incompetent designers or genuine misfires.
Ask any group of professional photographers how many have tried Gimp in an attempt to avoid Adobe's fees-- almost all of them will say they have. Ask how many actually use it? I'd be shocked to find a single one. Aside from the substandard graphic design tools for things like typography (which are totally reasonably not a focus for the project, especially when Inkscape is solid there,) Gimp is a competent photo editor. Who uses Gimp? Developers that need a photo editor. Developers making software that other developers like to use is not an indicator that they know how to make software that's tolerable for other people.
> you said you didn't notice a difference when it went away?
No, I said no difference "other than everything being suddenly faster". I'd say about 1-5% of animations are actually useful but I still wouldn't miss most of them.
> There's a lot of data out there that says otherwise
I would love to see that data. Not sure what your opinion on Gimp's UI design or its popularity has to do with the value of animations, or lack thereof.
Great UI goal, though what's catching is the change in visual state and colors, which also happens without extra animation, or you can add an extra highlight of the changed item to emphasize the change if state, so this doesn't address the specific issue
But the other side of the coin is that, because it is eye-catching, animation can be distracting or annoying.
Adding animation to your UI is like adding salt to your cooking: it's going to be pretty bland without it, but you can also ruin things by going overboard.