Should a button or link translate on hover?

Sometimes I see websites using a pattern, where a button or link translates (for example 5px to the top) when hovering it.

See an example in that SO answer

Is this a good or bad thing to do, UX-wise?


Personally I find two negative points:

  • the movement might distract the user, when they are just pushing around the mouse, browsing for content
  • more important: the is a "line" of mouse y-positions, where the animation would flicker, because the hover area changes with every "tick" of the animation from "hovering" to "not hovering". Like so:

Flicker while hover