Smooth Transition Between Websites Vs. A Smooth Browsing Experience

There seems to be an emerging trend in web design and development, one that consists of very smooth transitions to other websites without leaving the original destination. It is a neat trick, one that improves upon the old and clunky methods of coding frames that would hotlink to external sites. Naturally, this can be done with the right JavaScript library; a popular one being Barba.js, which handles XHR requests. In essence, this request reads the intent of the visitor when the mouse pointer hovers over a link, thus kicking off a fetch routine to start loading data before the actual click or tap takes place, thus making the transition seem smoother.

Web development frameworks such as React and Vue also offer similar transition effects. Another library to check out is Highway.js. With all the different frameworks and libraries out there, you are bound to spice up your projects and make them extremely aesthetic; however, there is a certain tradeoff to this practice. Remember the early days of Flash, when developers were less than mindful about the potential limitations of visitors' systems? They seem to be coming back despite Flash having been banished into oblivion, and this is not exactly good news for target audiences.

Back during the Flash days, developers eventually found a sweet spot that balanced form, functionality, and aesthetics. When web designers these days visit sites that are worthy of being awarded and admired by their peers, they will cringe upon hitting projects that take forever to load on their new MacBook Pros. We seem to be seeing many of these sites that are razzle dazzle but lack consideration for the least common denominator.

Here is something we should remember from the Flash days: It is reasonable to alert visitors that an element is being loaded, but when they have to see a "please wait until your entire page loads" message, you have already lost them. There was a lot of experimental work done with Flash; these days, however, it seems as if developers wish to cram as many library tricks and server calls as possible, and this is creating less than desirable browsing experiences. For more information click here https://www.reddit.com/r/web_design/comments/em88ps/transitioning_to_links/.