If you’re reading this blog post, your UI/UX (user interface and user experience) design is probably dead, and your users are numbly waving their goodbyes.
Just look at it. It’s lifeless. No matter how hard you try to revive it (change colors, rearrange text blocks and images, etc.), it remains immobile and still like a rock. At this rate, the user is dozing over your web page or app and then going away.
This guide will help you breathe new life into user experience with animation and motion graphics. Motion design has changed the web for good and for the better. Let’s explore this concept in detail, with the benefits it has brought in, and learn how to implement its best practices.
What Is motion design, and how is it applied to user interfaces?
Motion design is a balanced tandem of graphic elements and movement. Several design elements should move in a specific style dictated by a particular animation technique. This way, they change from static to dynamic. Here are some examples of companies that have used motion in their product:
Stripo.Email
A drag-and-drop animation demonstrates the process of using Stripo’s email editor.
Asana
Below, you can see Asana’s animated celebration creatures: the unicorn, narwhal, otter, yeti, and phoenix.
AliExpress
Have you noticed all the animations in it? There are three of them:
- The search bar with changing text
- The pointing arrow
- The sidebar box with an offer
The importance of motion design and animation for UX
Now that you’ve got a picture of how it looks on the website and inside apps, it’s time to find out why motion design matters for an exceptional user experience.
It enables intuitive interaction.
Motion and animated illustrations give a tangible hint or clue of how to behave or interact with applications or websites.
It minimizes stress and brain overload.
Animations provide user support and guidance. As you guide users’ behavior with motion designs, they experience less anxiety and fear of making mistakes (for example, pressing the wrong button and messing everything up).
The research shows that animated content poses a significantly lower cognitive load on the human brain than static content.
It increases user attention.
User attention is limited. If you don’t capture it with an immersive UX animation, you’ll risk losing it forever instantly.
Besides, studies show that an animated product item increases visual attention to all other content pieces on a web page.
It improves visual appeal.
Researchers prove that UI with animations enriches usability and visual aesthetics. With motion design, your user interface becomes visually appealing so that your audience actually craves to be inside it.
It establishes an emotional connection.
Animations, micro-interactions, and other interactive content make the digital world look more authentic and natural due to people’s emotional perceptions. And voila, the users’ hearts are won. They start having feelings for you if you manage to push the right emotional triggers.
So what, you ask?
An emotionally connected customer has a 306% higher lifetime value than a merely satisfied customer and recommends a brand at a rate of 71% compared to 45%.
UI/UX animation tips to boost user experience
Let’s reanimate your UI and lift your UX with the following tactics.
Navigate the user whenever possible
One of the most prevalent animation techniques for web design, navigation translates complexities into simple scenarios for a user.
Anthony Martin, Founder and CEO of Choice Mutual, claims, “Investment in intuitive animations for navigation pays off at once. By navigating users and simplifying things for them, you guarantee they don’t stumble on roadblocks throughout their journeys and enable a smooth user experience with motion design.
It becomes a matter of necessity, particularly if your goal is creating an accessible UI/UX design for older audiences requiring more assistance in the digital space.”
For example:
Choice Mutual makes it easier to navigate customer reviews without leaving the website with the animated arrow pointing to the right.
You can likewise level up your user experience with navigation animations.
Diversify the pool of animations for various needs and touchpoints
“When it comes to users’ experiences at different spots of interaction with a brand, UI/UX animation can either make or break them,” mentions Michael Power, CMO at DTF Transfers. “That is why it’s better to experiment with different animation styles applied in design to engage users: loading animation, hover effects, accent animation, typography animation, etc.,” he adds.
Let’s look at how you can elevate user experience with animation on the following pages:
- Homepage
Let’s start with your critical player for improving UX and optimizing conversion rates – the homepage. It’s often the first-ever touchpoint for an in-app user or a website visitor.
On the homepage of DTF Transfers, you can see scrolling words pinpointing the company’s benefits and other animated text blocks.
In fact, a short animation can drive 70% more sales than plain text. Why not convert your boring texts into stunning animations? Let them literally jump off the homepage to catch your user’s eye and convey the intended information.
- Product page
Apple nails the motion graphic designs on product pages. It is indeed one of the best examples of UI/UX animations in web design.
- 404 error page
Did you know 23% of top US websites have inadequate error pages? Do you also present users with dull “page not found”? You can quickly turn your 404 error into a UX win. Look at the mesmerizing animated 404 pages below for inspiration.
Stay on-brand like Spotify.
Alternatively, create something extraordinary like Hugo Ware, who used the vortex animation and accompanied it with the text ‘Page was sucked into the vortex!’
Encourage a sense of completion
What can best contribute to the pleasant animation viewing experience?
Fernando Lopez, Marketing Director at Circuit, states, “It’s a feeling of fulfillment or completion in UX/UI motion design that drives user experience.” He explains how it works: “When users watch the process from start to finish, they feel satisfaction from the completed activity. Besides, predictability of what happens next has a calming effect on the user’s mind.”
How about making such animations play forever by looping them?
Circuit did precisely that on the website. The company created an animated loop to showcase the feature of live route tracking.
You can also play animations in a sequence via chain interactions, looping one and then showing another.
Remember about your brand aesthetics and color psychology
“As a business owner, you should align your motion designs and animations with your brand aesthetics, particularly colors, to resonate with your existing audience and become more recognizable among newcomers,” recommends Jim Pendergast, Senior Vice President at altLINE Sobanco.
“In the sphere of finances and FinTech, for instance, such colors as green and blue prevail in animations and designs in combination with their complementary colors. Green signifies money and growth, and blue is for trust and security,” he adds.
Suppose you are choosing animations for the banking industry. In that case, you may have to be more concise and limit your color palettes to a complementary pair based on the color theory principles for motion design. For example:
- Yellow + violet
- yellow-green + red-violet
- Green + red
- Blue-green + red-orange
- Blue + orange
- Blue-violet + yellow-orange
A restrictive color palette is one of the current motion design trends. However, depending on your specific business field, you can step aside from the minimalist approach.
If you look at the mobile app user interface of AliExpress from earlier, you’ll see that it’s far from being simplistic.
Evoke positive emotions
Hey, where’s your smile?
That’s better. Actually, 91% of consumers want companies to make them smile and laugh, and 72% prefer a company using humor over competitors.
Let’s consider some examples.
Nature’s Bakery brings emotions into play with a winking smiley for a more positive loading time.
Duolingo offers bright and immersive user experiences with its super-optimistic UI animations and its mascot, Duo.
Unleash creativity and wow your audience
Creativity is paramount for motion design and marketing because it highlights the brand’s uniqueness.
Eric Mills, Owner of Lightning Card Collection, considers it a perpetual driver of an unforgettable user experience. He believes that creative animations in UX design help companies position themselves as one-of-a-kind, unlike the others.
“When tapping into creativity,” Mills says, “brands should strive to surprise the audience with the unexpected. For that, transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary is necessary to craft an iconic and memorable animation, blow up the mind, and leave a lasting impression on users.”
For example: At the bottom of MagicLinks’ homepage, you wouldn’t expect to see an animated cat wearing sunglasses, would you?
But there it is, encouraging the site user to apply with a meow!
How to create motion designs for better UX
The following methods will help you simplify motion design creation.
Gear up with a toolset
Here’s a list of animation tools to take your UI/UX motion designs to the next level:
- Adobe After Effects
- Pencil2D
- LottieFiles
- Animaker
- Jitter.video
- Blender
- Red Giant software
Hire an animation designer
No time to develop, edit, and customize animations?
Not to worry – you can always outsource this task to those who know motion design inside out and can do it with their eyes closed.
Find talented animators at LottieFiles.
Glorify user experience with the power of animation
In this article, you’ve got all the fundamental elements of a perfect UI/UX motion graphic design.
It’s time to act.
Similar to water that makes roots grow and flowers bloom, animations will revitalize your UI and transform it into a gorgeous flowering “plant”, attracting more and more “bees”. It will help you lure more people to your website or app and deliver an unsurpassed user experience.
Discover free animations for any purpose and taste on LottieFiles and draw users in with compelling motion designs.
