I know one of the authors of Flying Toasters and sent him the link. Here's what he had to say:
"It's a rough approximation, which is super cool, but misses all of the nuance.
"You see, back in the day, there were very strong competitors to After Dark that had as much or more animations. The thing that set After Dark was a "je ne sais quoi" that felt like an elevated experience. Both the customers & the competitors thought this was some sort of accident, or that the animations were important, but neither of these things was true.
"The secret was that people loved the nuance of interacting with the product (& subtlety in the animations) and it was very carefully designed with cognitive science. I pushed the team very hard before I would let anything be released because I insisted on the nuance."
I know one of the authors of Flying Toasters and sent him the link. Here's what he had to say:
"It's a rough approximation, which is super cool, but misses all of the nuance.
"You see, back in the day, there were very strong competitors to After Dark that had as much or more animations. The thing that set After Dark was a "je ne sais quoi" that felt like an elevated experience. Both the customers & the competitors thought this was some sort of accident, or that the animations were important, but neither of these things was true.
"The secret was that people loved the nuance of interacting with the product (& subtlety in the animations) and it was very carefully designed with cognitive science. I pushed the team very hard before I would let anything be released because I insisted on the nuance."