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Scroll-Driven Animations

scroll-driven-animations.style

62 pointsjavatuts56 comments

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There might be some good uses for these effects, but IMHO this particular Web page is an argument against them.

This effect is a particular favorite of Apple: https://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/

I hate these, but Apple does make some of the nicest, least-offensive examples.

To be honest, I find it sometimes pleasing, like when introducing some new programming libs:

https://developer.apple.com/tutorials/swiftui-concepts/explo...

Genuine question: do people like having their websites move around while scrolling? Just show me the text

When I'm reading? No. I don't want a unique experience to consume your text context.

There are some websites where this is done and it's really cool, but I'm not there to read text on those websites.

I think there are people who like the aesthetic. I don’t think many put thought to whether they objectively like the concept of it.

Given the choice of a page with information readily available or a page where you have to scroll and it does whacky animations to present the information.. I don’t think many would choose that.

I'm really not a fan of the image sequence that loads in the background and the scrolling of the page is hijacked to move between the "animation" scrolling the image sequence. If anything, that should be a left/right scroll when the element is active or at least on element:hover. Stopping the expected page scroll to now start "animating" this media element until the end which then releases the scrolling back into the expected behavior is clearly designed by sociopaths and sadists.

Burn it with fire

I hate it. Easily my least favorite kind of interactive content.

I actually find it a bit nauseating.

Developers should implement https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/pref... :)

Wow, didn't know there were settings for this, thanks. I do suffer from motion sickness a bit.

I think it can be fine if it's more of a marketing thing that I'm only going to view once and that doesn't have too much reading. Think of it like a promotional video that I can view at my own pace. But you have to have a good reason for it, cause there are lots of downsides.

And never use it for anything important, or that I might want to go back to multiple times.

This site is probably an example of a bad use case, cause it's the front page and I can't access the links without scrolling. Not to mention that it's broken on my device.

I think it can be nice when most of the content is static and there are a few flourish animations tied with scrolling. But IMHO any time any notable portion of content is being animated it is distracting at best or hurts the ability to read at worst.

Apple website

I don't typically like it, but I believe that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has done some interesting infographic-style articles that did it well. Edit: Found some![0]

But as is usual with these things, people on HN are not the typical consumer of these things

[0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/interactives has many, the first one I clicked on was an example https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-28/almost-one-in-ten-peo...

I frequently close the tab when I encounter this stuff. Sometimes I'll just disable JavaScript.

Well, most website developers forget or have not checked the existence of (prefers-reduced-motion), which should disable all animations when a user preference is detected.

This is the very first website I have ever stumbled upon that made me physically ill (nausea) from the motion. WOW.

Same, it's impressive in a way, but I loathe this.

[self-promotion] My paid browser extension for Mac and iOS has a "Stop animations" feature if this kind of stuff drives you mad: https://apps.apple.com/app/stopthemadness-pro/id6471380298

The nice thing about a native approach is that `prefers-reduced-motion` will probably apply.

Web developers have to care about checking prefers-reduced-motion. It doesn't do anything by itself.

People who read don’t want this garbage. If your content must be read, don’t use this garbage.

Which is why it is great that Governments are adopting design systems that discourage anything that is superfluous to the content people are looking for. There is a very high emphasis on accessibility and consistency because it makes sense.

https://designsystem.digital.gov/

https://design-system.service.gov.uk/

Almost all the scroll-driven animations add no particular value. However, when it does, it does, just like every successful website, go back to being a tad boring and to the point, with precise information and bringing the Bottom Line Up Front.

When SVG animation was beginning to be widely supported by modern browsers (about 10+ years ago), a friend did a CSS-enabled SVG animation for a company’s website that explained “How it works” as the user scrolls the website. It worked, and the most asked question of “how it works” support ticket drops, thus increasing conversion and trust.

The website was for a hardware company in California that serves B2B customers with MIPS-based networks, video and security processors, etc.

I actually really like the scroll bar at the top , I also like the general style of your website.

https://scroll-driven-animations.style/demos/progress-bar/cs...

I was going to ask you to provide source code but it turns that its hand crafted css / js / html

so I am probably going to create a hugo plugin and transform into this (though I would really really like it if somebody could write a dark mode , though I just tried dark reader and its also really nice , feels like magic , but I am going to create a dark button on the top , and change the width of red and maybe the color as well and it could be so cool.

Thanks a lot man

A lot of people are saying , why do you need this , I wouldn't over use it on every page , but I like this , I genuinely do though I also prefer simplicity.

I think that a guy should have two parts of a guide while still adhering to the same guide , maybe have the frontpage a little bit more scroll driven animations , heck three js if you want , but it shouldn't be on my face kind of animations

But keep the inner documentation smooth and simple , pure static html

The best ones are in the NYtimes long form articles, it would be cool for them to open-source their framework

The way the article is titled, I was expecting a virtual list or virtual scroll. Now that would be one of the most useful things to talk about. How to virtual scroll 10000 items with different heights. 1) When user can provide heights and 2) when everything has to be rendered on the fly

This shows a jitter of dead pixels , which isn't shown if its full screen on chromium https://scroll-driven-animations.style/demos/cover-to-fixed-...

https://ibb.co/qFy7YnTF

I don't really like it on "normal" websites, but for art projects it's great. For example, I recently came across https://www.aquarium.ru, a page dedicated to Aquarium, a Russian band

I'm happy to see that only one of those animations work in the browser I used.

Super neat. Worth noting that some of these, e.g. Reverse-Scrolling Columns and Horizontal Scroll Section, kill the ability to use the macOS trackpad to swipe through history on Chrome.

If I'm scrolling up/down and the page is reacting by scrolling left/right, I want to throw my mouse at the screen. Maybe it makes sense if all you have is a scroll wheel, but I haven't had one of those in over a decade.

I just experienced this from the demos.

https://motion.dev/docs/react-use-scroll

I hate these things but they're not made for you and me. They're made for some VP who pays the developer's salary.

Most VPs think the point of their website is to impress rather than to inform. I'm only impressed by websites that do inform, but I'm rarely the person who writes a check to the company with the impressive website. That person is ... another VP.

God I hate it.

I can't stand websites that do this kind of thing. Just distracting and adds nothing.

The neon signage of our time

Neon signs have more charm.

Basically the modern <blink> or <marquee> tag.

When did we stop referring to this as Parallax Effects

A mouse zooming into your face isn't parallax

I feel like people are being overly critical of this work. When used sparingly, scrolling effects can add charm to marketing pages and portfolios, and I've seen some great uses on so called "explorable explanations" and other long form articles.

The main objective seems to be advocacy/evangelism on new browser animation APIs, which I welcome [1].

... I agree that the top mouse animation is, errr... a bit ugly, though :-).

1: https://scroll-driven-animations.style/#links

The issue people have is that those effects draw attention to themselves (be it “charm” or dismay) and away from the actual content.

Not really useful when it's not support on most recent Firefox version.

If Firefox does release support, it shouldn’t be long before adoption is widespread: > Since Mozilla throttles the rollout of a new version (incrementally upgrading the percentage of the population getting upgrades), it takes about four weeks for about 70% of clients to upgrade before stabilizing.

https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity

Unrelated but from that link "But why profiles? Why not just measure new user rate? Because we don't track users." is a weird thing to write after showing Monthly Active Users.

The number of devs that see something isn't supported on FF and do something other than shrug their shoulders is probably me and one other person on the internet. Maybe. It could just be me.

I don't think that moves the needle much on if people care it doesn't work in FF.

> The number of devs that see something isn't supported on FF and do something other than shrug their shoulders is probably me and one other person on the internet. Maybe. It could just be me.

The number is likely extremely close to the number of Firefox users.

And yet you missed the self-deprecating humor in acknowledging FF users is such a small number, it's me and one other person. Did you think that was a literal number I believed to be true?

My (personally) humorous interpretation was that they were extending your joke by implying the only users using FF are devs and they are the ones that care.

Depends on the region. In Germany for example, Firefox has higher market share (around 10%) than Edge or Samsung Internet.

Sounds like a total win for Firefox! Hope it stays this way.

Use Firefox! It does not support sites that make you physically ill when you scroll them!

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