Must Design

This article got me thinking. It's about transitions in user interface design with some very nice animated examples.

Are the transitions shown here useful in a learning context, or are they merely window dressing that detracts from learnability? Personally, I think that while they look nice the first time, most of these transitions become annoying with time, simply delaying users. Mayer and others have shown how eye-candy can often be detrimental to learning.

Is it time for some generous academic to re-evaluate the situation in light of recent UX designs, preferably in a corporate setting? Or, maybe somebody already has and some kind soul could post here and point me in the right direction?