What is the most important requirement in the design of a website? It's to provide value to the user for the time spent. "Don't Make Me Think" is the title of a new book by Steve Krug on the design of websites. If the user has to think to figure out where to find the information they are looking for time is wasted.

Good design is all about consistency and following conventions so users don't have to think. It is clear now that the Internet is not a good entertainment media, it can't compete with TV. Fancy animated presentations designed to entertain or motivate that are forced on the user at the opening of a website will fail. The visitor will probably go elsewhere before the animation is over with their time wasted.

In sites we are designing we recommend putting an animation as part of the home page with the navigation buttons active. In that way users can go where they need to immediately without waiting for the animation to load and play. Our own site is a good example of how this is done.

An example of a unique application of animation that solves the problem of displaying large diagrams can be found here.