Personally, I find the "fade-in" animations quite distracting, since I read/think faster than the animations reveal information, so it constantly "interrupts"/"stutters" my thought process.
Animations are usually "serial", while (my) thought is usually "fractal"/"parallel", ie. I quickly take in the entire content, and then start focusing on individual parts according to intuitive salience (or other features).
Instead of animations, visual hierarchy / typography etc. is used by professional designers to convey eg. appropriate reading order.
Makes sense if you prefer scanning the whole picture first. Whole-to-parts vs. parts-to-whole is a different mindset. I personally like fade-in in some cases—it helps me focus on one layer at a time and build up the full context without getting overwhelmed. That said, efficiency can be an issue, so each viz is situational and easy to overuse :-)
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Animations are usually "serial", while (my) thought is usually "fractal"/"parallel", ie. I quickly take in the entire content, and then start focusing on individual parts according to intuitive salience (or other features).
Instead of animations, visual hierarchy / typography etc. is used by professional designers to convey eg. appropriate reading order.
- what library are you using to create these cool animations?