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When animation is an accessibility problem - The Verge

This is why prefers-reduced-motion matters.

Fun Parallax Scrolling CSS for Matterday

This is such a great clear explanation from Lynn on how to add some tasteful parallax depth to scrolling pages.

Bruce Lawson’s personal site : prefers-reduced-motion and browser defaults

I think Bruce is onto something here:

It seems to me that browsers could do more to protect their users. Browsers are, after all, user agents that protect the visitor from pop-ups, malicious sites, autoplaying videos and other denizens of the underworld. They should also protect users against nausea and migraines, regardless of whether the developer thought to (or had the tools available to).

So, I propose that browsers should never respect scroll-behavior: smooth; if a user prefers reduced motion, regardless of whether a developer has set the media query.

Accessibility for Vestibular Disorders: How My Temporary Disability Changed My Perspective · An A List Apart Article

This is a fascinating insight into what it’s like to use the web if you’ve got vertigo (which is way more common than you might think):

Really, there are no words to describe just how bad a simple parallax effect, scrolljacking, or even background-attachment: fixed would make me feel. I would rather jump on one of those 20-G centrifuges astronauts use than look at a website with parallax scrolling.

Every time I encountered it, I would put the bucket beside me to good use and be forced to lie in bed for hours as I felt the room spinning around me, and no meds could get me out of it. It was THAT bad.

Brendan Dawes - The Art of Cybersecurity

Some lovely data visualisation by Brendan:

The work features three main components — the threats, represented by black obelisk style objects, the system which detects and deals with these threats, represented by an organic mesh like structure, and finally the creativity that is allowed to flow because the threats have been neutralised.

page-transitions-travelapp

A demo of page transition animations by Sarah—she’s written about how she did it. I really like it as an example of progressive enhancement: you can navigate around the site just fine, but with JavaScript you get the smooth transitions as a bonus.

All of this reminds me of Jake’s proposal for navigation transitions in the browser. I honestly think this would solve 80% of the use-cases for single page apps.

Parallax scrolling with CSS variables | basicScroll

Don’t let the title fool you—this isn’t just for parallax scrolling (thank goodness!)—it’s for triggering any CSS updates based on scroll position. Using CSS custom properties makes a lot of sense. The JavaScript/CSS bridge enabled by custom properties is kind of their superpower. (That’s one of the reasons why I don’t like calling them “CSS variables” which makes them sound like Sass variables—they’re so much more than that!)

Your Interactive Makes Me Sick - Features - Source: An OpenNews project

Browsers have had consistent scrolling behavior for years, even across vendors and platforms. There’s an established set of physics, and if you muck with the physics, you can assume you’re making some people sick.

Guidelines to consider before adding swooshy parallax effects:

Respect the Physics

Remember that We Call Them “Readers”

Ask for Consent

Given all the work that goes into a powerful piece of journalism—research, interviews, writing, fact-checking, editing, design, coding, testing—is it really in our best interests to end up with a finished product that some people literally can’t bear to scroll through?

Electronic Items

I love the way Guillaume Kurkdjian uses animation here to demonstrate how these gadgets from the ’90s would work.

Scrolling on the web: A primer - Microsoft Edge Dev BlogMicrosoft Edge Dev Blog

A ludicrously deep dive by Nolan into how scrolling works in web browsers. No, wait, come back! It’s more interesting than it sounds …and it certainly isn’t as simple as you might think.

For instance, do you know the difference between the following scenarios?

User scrolls with two fingers on a touch pad

User scrolls with one finger on a touch screen

User scrolls with a mouse wheel on a physical mouse

User clicks the sidebar and drags it up and down

User presses up, down, PageUp, PageDown, or spacebar keys on a keyboard

If you ask the average web user (or even the average web developer!) they might tell you that these interactions are all equivalent. The truth is far more interesting.

This comes complete with lovely animated illustrations by Rachel.

Link tags: movement

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