Fast is not the same as good
We spent a decade shaving milliseconds off every interaction, and somewhere along the way we confused responsiveness with restlessness. An interface that reacts instantly to everything ends up meaning nothing in particular.
The best products I’ve worked on have a rhythm. They move quickly where intent is clear and slow down where a decision matters — a checkout, a delete, a goodbye.
Designing the pause
A deliberate 400ms transition can do more for comprehension than any tooltip. Motion is how a system tells you what just happened. Take it away, and people are left to guess.