Why are websites so poor in terms of transition & animation compared to native apps?
It's 2020 and web standards allow for really powerfull animations. Compatibility is barely an issue since most browsers are evergreen and most devices are powerfull enough. On top of that, it's easy to just offer pregressive enhancement in this domain.
It's not new, we have been knowing for a long time that good transitions help improve context switching. It has been explained in lengths by renowned specialists, see:
That being said, I'm wondering why so few websites offer the kind of experience that is so common in mobile apps. I'm a developper, I know that following a link to another page triggers a full page reload, that's the default behaviour of the web.
On one hand, not all websites deserve a complex system to handle pages/views transitions. On the other hand, many smaller interactions that happen on page could use animations but don't. It often looks like they have been overlooked.
All this has obviously a cost, but some companies that can undoubtedly afford it don't always use them.
- Amazon barely animates their menu, and interactions on product pages are horrible (screen).
- Brands like Sephora and Assos don't even bother animating their menu (screen).
- Apple animates some stuffs, their menu for instance, but clicking the shopping cart, the pop-under appears out of the blue. Yet when they decide to animate, they go all-in, for instance the new iPhone SE showcase page is incredible (screen). They also offer a very decent experience when animations can't be done (screen).
I sometimes stumble upon amazing designs on Dribbble and see developers bringing them to life but it rarely reaches production on real websites. Yet, designers are very creative and real use cases are plentiful.
Think e-commerce shopping experience, this design would probably make me buy just because I'd get super familiar with the product taking time to configure it for my needs.
I can't help wondering why the web is lagging behind? Is there a real reason or is it just inertia due to old habits?