If you're a button, you have one job

353 points · 177 comments on HN · read original →

Points and comments are a snapshot, not live.

Animations that ignore taps create situational disability for power users.

The author compares rotating a photo on an iPhone versus a Nothing Phone. Tapping the rotate button eight times on an iPhone buffers all taps, completing all rotations. On the Nothing Phone, the button ignores taps made while the 90-degree animation is running, even though haptics and sound fire. This matters for "situational power user-ness": someone批量 rotating dozens of landscape documents needs to tap rapidly without waiting for animations. The rule: never force users to wait for an animation to finish.

What commenters are saying

Commenters split into two camps. One side condemns blocking input during animations, citing the Therac-25 disaster as a cautionary tale. The other side defends some input blocking when layout shifts could register accidental taps. Multiple commenters note that Google Photos on Pixel phones eliminates the rotation animation entirely, a solution they prefer. One commenter initially misread the article, thinking it praised the Nothing Phone's approach; others corrected that the article criticizes it for dropping taps.