

In general, he recommends animating collections with a small stagger interval between each animation one that is a fraction of the actual stagger duration. This can even be as low as 50 to 100 milliseconds - trust me, the effect will be seen! When a long interval is used, each animation feels distinct, which goes against the feeling of the entire collection being animated as a single unit.”ĭavid also cautions that not using any stagger interval can make an animation feel non-intuitive, as if the collection of items are really a consolidated single item. “When animating a collection of items, the stagger interval - so the delay between each animation - should be kept to a minimum. “It’s as if the animator is saying ‘Here’s this one, then this one, then this one’,” he warns.
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Commonly, however, the interval between each animation is too long, finds David Khourshid, a software engineer at Microsoft. When animating a collection of items, whether they’re entering or exiting, a common pattern is to use a stagger effect to animate the items in sequence.

If you’re working with CSS, is a great place to explore custom easing curves. “To take your animation skills one step even further, I highly recommend customizing your easing curves instead of just using the default ease-in, ease-in-out, and ease-out that comes with your tool of choice. When moving an object from point to point, Val suggests an ease-in-out curve, as it causes the object to both accelerate into the movement as well as slow down before coming to a stop. “An ease-in easing will have the object accelerate into its action, just like an object in real life might.” “The inverse holds true for objects leaving the screen,” Val advises. It will have them slow down before they come to a stop in their final position, which will look much more realistic than linear easing where there is no slowing down, and the object stops abruptly: Paying attention to the easing you’re using for your animation can fix this.”įor example, Val recommends using an ease-out for objects entering into view. Even on screen, animations that follow this general pattern often feel odd or even look a bit wrong. In the real world objects accelerate into their motion and slow down before coming to a stop. “It’s also a big influence on how successful your animation will be.

“Easing is what makes an animated object change speed over the course of an animation,” she explains. One of the most telltale mistakes Val Head, design advocate at Adobe and author of “ Designing Interface Animation,“ sees designers newer to animation make is forgetting to pay attention to easing.

Your audience will thank you for it.” A clear, uncomplicated, linear journey, as in this ‘Add to gallery’ animation by Chris Gannon, gently guides the eye to the intended target. “We as motion designers should resist the desire to show off - uhm, guilty! - and instead aim to be clear and concise in our execution, so that our animations support and complement the interface and are easy to understand. “Yes, it can - and often should - be aesthetically wonderful, quirky, whimsical, funny, and all the other things that resonate with humans, but if the underlying meaning is lost because too many things are moving, then it just becomes confusing and creates cognitive overload.” “Animation should be used functionally and with restraint in UI motion design,” he advises. Just because you can animate something doesn’t mean you should. Don’t animate all the thingsĬhris cautions that less is more. They also offer some practical tips to help you avoid those mistakes and improve the user experience and HCI instead. So we invited Chris along with a few other animation experts to share some of the biggest mistakes people make when they use animation. However, as Chris points out, with great power comes great responsibility, and this is especially true when it comes to designing animation. In short, when used with discipline, animation can be a very powerful visual language.” In user interface motion design, animated elements can clarify actions and tasks by leading the eye to a specific place, confirming user input or reinforcing an action with an appropriate reaction. “It can convey subtle emotions and feelings that words alone cannot. “Animation has the ability to convey a deeper meaning than imagery and text alone,” emphasizes interactive motion designer Chris Gannon. Auto-Animate in Adobe XD, for example, enables you to create prototypes with immersive animated transitions, which you can now also preview in the browser. Animation is a powerful tool in UX design, and it’s now possible to create amazing animations on pretty much any platform and device.
