Now that I’ve tried them, the main thing that gets me about the menus is their speed — I don’t like having to wait for my navigation. The fact that they’re animated is only a secondary concern.

I have to disagree about the accordion of stories. I think it’s a fine way to maximize limited “above the fold” screen area. If the accordion weren’t smoothly animated, and an onhover caused a jerky shift from one article to another, the user experience would likely degrade.

In and of itself, animation has no value, positive or negative. Employed expertly (and sparingly), it can give UIs a satisfying, tactile feel. I’m confident the author would agree, since I believe the point is about excessive animation.

That said, certainly we could find far more “bewildering” examples of excessive animation than NASA.gov, which, for a government website, is halfway decent.

Also, if you move your mouse over the three stories on the home page (indicated with a red arrow), the stories slide out without needing to be activated with a mouse click etc.

I have to say I was looking at the site in Firefox (Mac and PC) — I can’t categorically say if this occurs on all browsers. It was the example referred to in the book however, so I assume that the behaviour is common across various browsers.

Hope this clears this up — of course, some people may like this effect!