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Animation Handbook

The Animation Handbook is the guide to best

practices for animation in digital product
design. This book uncovers the seven
principles of bringing motion into user interface
design and explains how animation is the bridge
to telling better stories and engaging users in
more human and intuitive ways. By bringing
elements from our real world experiences
into the virtual space, we can build greater
trust in our products and better relationships
with the people who use them. This book
includes stories and interviews with Google,
Lyft, Headspace, and Zova Fitness, that put
principles into practice, and show how motion
can enable stronger design systems and more
expressive brands. The Animation Handbook
will prime you not just to animate but to craft
exceptional and more intuitive digital product
interfaces for your customers.
Contents
Motion’s purpose
The impact of animation

Principles of animation
Making product magic

Animation collaboration
Scale solutions

Taking animation further

Small things matter
Chapter—01

Motion’s purpose
The impact of animation
While the standard flavors of salty, sweet, sour, and bitter

are obvious to us and easy to experience, the fifth flavor—

umami—is ineffable. It’s the salience of parmesan cheese,

anchovies, dried tomatoes, fish sauce, and dashi. Though it

can be oversaturated and overused, umami is an essential

taste modifier that makes the sum of its parts stronger when

it’s properly used.

Animation plays a role similar to umami to elevate good design

to a more satisfying experience. Over the years, we’ve built

small affordances into our interfaces with animation and

motion. Whether the familiar blinking I-beam cursor of our text

editors, or the simple disapproving shake of a bad password,

motion is an essential—yet largely unexamined—bridge

between our physical and virtual worlds. Although motion is an

obvious component of telling stories on film, in games, and in

our software, we’ve only recently begun to elevate animation

to a first-class design ingredient in consumer software.

The greatest value animation adds to software is context.

Animation takes something with no moving parts and adds

the appearance of visible change. These noticeable changes

provide us with tangible and familiar context, which makes

our software more intuitive, discoverable, emotive, and

recognizable.
The rediscovery of motion

A number of forces propelled interface animation to where

it is today. Commercial animation tools like Flash introduced

expressive and limitless animation experimentation, but

eventually lost favor as new technologies like CSS animation

delivered similar functionality without the dependence on a

plugin. And no force influenced modern interface motion and

animation more than the iPhone.

The iPhone took the concept of making a virtual world feel

physical to a new level. No longer were we indirectly prodding

elements from afar with tools like a mouse; we were touching

them. Unlocking the phone was not unlike sliding a chain lock;

the glimmer on the text of the lock invited our attention and

directed our swiping.

Figure 1. The shimmering “slide to unlock” text on the original iPhone

helped introduce people to a new way of opening their phone.

As an app closed, it shrunk to its resting place and taught

us where to find it next time. The momentum of iOS scrolling

mimicked the friction and physics of physical objects making

it feel both familiar and efficient. Pinching and stretching an

album was all that was needed to fan out hundreds of photos

onto a tiny virtual surface.

This was a significant step in creating a natural user interface,

which makes complex software interactions so intuitive that

they almost become invisible. The fluid movement of objects in

the real world began to make their way into software as a core

design component.

Motion communicates change and context

We’re wired to see and learn from motion. A simple flipbook of

frames fools us into seeing a cohesive and continuous story

of motion, an innate human ability that opened the door to

animated film, television, and all forms of cross-reality. While

video games and movies embraced motion to share vivid and

incredible stories, digital products have taken a more timid

approach. However, adopting more considered and consistent

animation experiences will make software a more comfortable

extension of the human mind.

To make software feel familiar, it should behave like the real

world. Most natural forces demonstrate observable motion.

Those few natural forces that happen instantaneously—like

lightning—are harder to process, to the point that we describe

them as supernatural. Like lightning, computers operate at

speeds so fast that elements appear and disappear on screen

instantly, with no inherent need to slow down to human-

perceptible speed. If we were to show a person from the early

twentieth century a computer in action they would, no doubt,

be mystified by the sudden appearance of shapes and text on

screen because it defies perceptions of how the physical world

works. Consciously or not, our modern minds have adapted to

these unnatural gaps in context.

By closing these gaps, we make software less esoteric and

more natural to use, with fewer of the subversive mental

gymnastics that tend to exclude and frustrate users. Simple

acts—like darkening a button when it’s pressed or tapping an

image to expand and fill the screen while everything else fades

and shrinks away—tell us changes are afoot. Though there’s

no functional need to animate an application window shrinking

into its resting place, such visible motion gives us time to

observe the change while also providing a sense of space and

where things reside.

Animation gives the brain clues and context to build a

necessary bridge between the real and virtual worlds. By

filling contextual gaps in an interface’s storytelling, we can

make our virtual world more human, graspable, delightful, and

empowering to all.

Motion catches the eye

We’re often presented with terms and conditions, newsletter

signup forms, and other such text and dialog as we interact

with digital content, which we reflexively close or dismiss. We

must assume that anyone using our software is ignoring large

swaths of it.

Motion has an evolutionary command of our attention that

shows what we’re telling to greater effect than static text

boxes. For instance, through immersive animation, rather than

a lengthy list of rules, video games require little explanation to

get someone on the road to mastery. Animation is more than

look and feel; it’s a way to seamlessly integrate nuance and

context better than most words could.

A typical podcast app has you tap a button to download an

episode, perhaps indicating via a bounce or a notification

banner when the episode is ready to play. This use of motion

tells us when the episode is downloaded, but doesn’t make

clear where to find it when it’s downloaded. A better download

alternative might illustrate exactly what’s happening, perhaps

by animating an icon of the episode itself moving from the

download button to an inbox. Motion eliminates the burden

of filling in the gaps between action and result. It teaches

the relationship between parts of the interface and building

familiarity with the layout.

Figure 2. Motion can grab our attention and help fill the gaps between

action and result. In this podcast player UI animation provides system

feedback and shows where to find downloaded episodes. (View

animated figure online)

Of course, every rule has exceptions. We shouldn’t replace all

text with motion or iconography—some warnings or explicit

statements are clearer as text. More critically, nothing should

diminish the accessibility of the user experience. Ensure that

for any change you communicate visually you also provide

appropriate accessibility descriptions and announcements for

those who rely on assistive technology.

Good animation serves an underlying purpose that makes

it obvious, felt, and nearly invisible all at once. Look for

opportunities to visually explain cause and effect. By replacing

telling with showing as much as possible, we ensure that every

animation serves a meaningful purpose.

Motion captures emotion

Animation does more than build context and support

wayfinding. Animation provides a universal language to imbue

emotion, augment feeling, and explain hard concepts. Like in

all design, we can instill emotional qualities in our animations

that make them feel a certain way—exuberant, tranquil, sharp,

or playful.

A dating app like Tinder chooses springier, playful animations,

while an exacting synthesizer like AudioKit Synth One keeps

its animations fast and tight. A buttoned-up social media

app suddenly releases an explosion of animation around an

event, like favoriting a photo, as a way to signify the emotion

of a compliment in a way words cannot. Both overt and subtle

animations play an important and assistive role in building the

memorability and trust of a brand experience.

Animation need not only be an accent, though. Animation can

stand on its own to help convey hard emotions and concepts

where words falter. Headspace leverages animation to bypass

stigmas and stereotypes when explaining concepts like

meditation and managing anxiety. Animation is just relatable

enough—but not too real—that it makes a perfect bridge to

unfamiliar concepts.

Even utilities like MailChimp use animation to help assuage

the nerve-wracking act of hitting the send button. No matter

how many times you check for typos, hitting send on a

newsletter to five or 50,000 people is going to come with

a moment of hesitation. An animation of a sympathetically

sweating and shaking hand about to press the send button

alongside you conveys, “It’s ok to feel stressed right now!” The

animated high-five that appears after sending is a nice bit of

reassurance.
Figure 3. Mailchimp uses animation to assuage the nerve-wracking

act of hitting the send button. The animated high-five that appears

after sending provides a bit of reassurance while celebrating the

completion of a big task. (View animated figure online)

Motion invites discovery

The use of expressive animation in an interface invites play,

which leads to experimentation and a deeper understanding

of what’s possible. Think about the “pull to refresh” action we

see in interfaces everywhere. As we swipe down, we glimpse

something just out of view—a hint that ensures we’ll continue

our pulling motion to discover what we’re not seeing.

Figure 4. A “pull to refresh” action in an interface gives a glimpse of

something just out of view—a hint that ensures we’ll discover new

things off screen. (View animated figure online)

Motion and animation do more than just reveal hidden

interactions; they provide guidance on how less obvious

interactions work. For instance, on the Apple iOS lock screen,

we can turn on the flashlight or launch the camera—but only

if we apply just enough intentional pressure on the buttons.

We learn this by not pressing the buttons hard enough at first

and seeing them spring back with resistance. The buttons

grow and dim in proportion to the duration of our touch, which

invites us to adjust the pressure we use to “see what happens.”

The core components of your interface should always be near

the surface and ready to use. However, the secondary—but

useful—bits can be safely tucked away and hinted at with

animation.

Motion enlivens software

Motion is powerful. It’s a vital and overlooked part of our

physical world and a difficult-to-place ingredient of great

interface design. It makes the sum of our design parts stronger

by dissolving the barriers between thought and interface.

While animation and motion may be relatively new disciplines

of software design, they’re critical to creating experiences

that transform technical tools into extensions of our minds.

Read on to learn the principles that turn the complex into the

approachable, whether on your own or as part of a team.

Further Reading

Transitional Interfaces

Designing Interface Animation

The “Why” of Using Animation in Interaction Design

Hacking user perception to make your websites and apps feel

faster

Enhance Your User Experience with Animated Transitions

Chapter—02

Principles of
animation
Making product magic
Embellishment is innate to storytelling. When we share our

stories—small or large—we’re trying to make others feel as

though they’ve lived through the experience. By refining and

embellishing, we tell untruths that help do our stories better

justice; by adding touches of over-the-top whimsy we make

them more emotional and thereby memorable; by bending

the physics of time and motion we bring something otherwise

inanimate closer to life, where we’re better equipped to relate

to and understand it. To animate something is to bring it to life.

Where animation makes stories more relatable to audiences,

it also helps us understand and trust the digital “magic”

around us by filling the gaps between cause and effect. Analog

systems like bicycles, toasters, or washing machines have

physical limitations to how they can work or predictably move.

Because we innately understand these limitations, we know

what to expect and gain confidence in the systems around us.

When you pedal a bike the wheels turn and you move

forward; when you press the lever on a toaster the bread

goes down. Even simple circuits, like those in a flashlight or

washing machine, can almost be traced and understood. We

understand the motion of these analog objects because they

live in the physical world.

As digital systems evolved and miniaturized, the simple turned

complex. The reassuring sound of gears turning or the acrid

smoke of a short circuit was replaced with silent workings

and failings; our machinery became more inanimate. What

once moved and could be seen became small, delicate, and

hidden with a layer of software atop. We built the magical

disconnected levers and knobs of software to control the

machinery within.

Arthur C. Clarke’s third law states that “any sufficiently

advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

While the idea of magic is whimsical and powerful, it can be

uncomfortable when it operates in the world around you

outside of your control or understanding. These days, the

mechanics and inner workings of most tools are invisible.

While they’re built upon physical principles, the technological

underpinnings that allow our phones to know who we are with

invisible laser light, or hear our requests from across the house

with far-field microphones, are enough removed from our

understanding to essentially be magic.

In digital systems, almost all of our constraints are lifted, and

nearly anything is possible. Crafting magic is well within our

reach, and by following some established animation principles,

we can make our magic feel more familiar and analog to others.
We can make the profound approachable.

Principles
Animation is a design tool we can use to lend physicality and

tangibility to our abstract digital creations by making them feel

more analog and familiar. There are a handful of established

animation principles to keep in mind when telling stories—

even the tiny, causal stories we see in digital gestures and

interactions.

While animation has found a new home in digital interfaces,

its classical history is rooted in film and entertainment. The

veritable masters were at Walt Disney, where Frank Thomas

and Ollie Johnston’s book, Disney Animation: The Illusion of

Life, established 12 famous principles of animation. While film

animation isn’t exactly the same as digital interface animation,

we can look to, learn from, and rely on film animation’s

established terminology and principles.

In this chapter, we’ll go into detail on seven key animation

principles that inform interface design:

• Timing: the control over when and how long elements

animate

• Pacing: the rate of speed at which elements animate

• Staging: the motion that precedes and informs larger

change

• Follow-through: the demonstration of life-like aftermath of

an animation

• Secondary action: the subtle background animations that

enhance an overall scene

• Overlapping action: the animation that takes place

alongside, and implies a connection to, the primary motion

• Appeal: the imbuing of characters with larger-than-life

features or dramatic proportions

Timing and pacing

Just as timing can make or break a good joke, it can also cause

us to see correlations where none exist, like a coincidence

that feels supernatural. Timing can cause us to see life where

there is none, and—more importantly—establishes mood and

personality.

Figure 1. Timing can cause us to see life where there is none, and—

more importantly—establishes mood and personality. Simple shapes

moving around can appear to tell a story. (View animated figure

online)

In the analog world, transitions tend to have tell-tale, in-

between states that communicate more about how things

work than merely observing the end states. Handles turn when

doors open, text is erased before it’s rewritten, and kettles

whistle louder as they get hotter. We’re wired to pick up on and

react to these kinds of changes.

Digital data changes at a rate imperceptible to humans. Even

when we display changing data on screens, like the number

of footsteps taken or amount of screen time, the transition

between states is sub-perceptual. However, it only takes a

hundred or so milliseconds of movement to make a change

perceptual to the human eye.

These middle states, where objects might move, fade, or flash,

are technically unnecessary—after all, the underlying data

could have changed multiple times in the blink of an eye. But

these transitions are a necessary bit of falseness that makes

the digital world’s magic more familiar and comprehensible. By

introducing animation to our state changes, we make digital

experiences more accessible to humans.

Figure 2. Animation can make state changes in an interface clearer

and more human. (View animated figure online)

The simplest way to humanize state changes is to lengthen

them just enough to be perceptual. In animation, time is our

greatest tool. How we sculpt time can completely change the

perception of an interface’s speed, properties, or even mood.

State transitions, like a new view appearing, an item loading, or

something being scrolled through, all warrant different uses of

timing.
Figure 3. For an object’s physicality to be believable, we need to

feel the force that gets it started and the force that stops it. In other

words, we should see acceleration. (View animated figure online)

The frame is the fundamental unit of animation, with each

frame offering a snapshot of a scene. Differences between

frames blend together to build the illusion of movement and

motion. In traditional animation, timing is usually measured

by how many more frames are used at the beginning or end

of a motion; the more frames used, the slower something

appears to move, and vice versa. In digital animation, we rely

on timing functions that mathematically define how an object

accelerates, eases, or even bounces through a state change.

The simplest function is linear, meaning an object in motion

will advance forward a uniform amount for each unit of time.

This basic timing of motion is perceptual, but something about

it is off (perhaps because this sort of uniform movement is

physically impossible, at least according to Isaac Newton). For

an object’s physicality to be believable, we need to feel the

force that gets it started and the force that stops it. In other

words, we should see acceleration.

Figure 4. A good rule of thumb is to ease-out objects that are

entering or gaining attention, and ease-in objects that are leaving

and losing attention.(View animated figure online)

To predictably recreate this acceleration in digital interfaces,

we use easing functions to dictate where an object will be

along its defined trajectory at a given time.

Easing functions have many names and types, each with

different feelings and use cases. One of the best ways to

experience the difference is with your hands: make a fist, and

then quickly open your hand. Then do the same thing, but open

your hand at one intentional speed. Even though the gesture

takes about the same amount of time, the rate at which you

move changes the feeling and meaning.

Always experiment until you find the right fit for your needs,

but a good rule of thumb is to ease-out objects that are

entering or gaining attention, and ease-in objects that are

leaving and losing attention. When mimicking real life, or

analogs—whether it’s a person, a behavior, or an object—it

helps to imagine how they function.

Staging

Animations can be light or nearly invisible and still improve

usability by preparing the viewer for change. For instance,

if subtitles change suddenly while the viewer’s eye is on the

action, it can be easy to miss the change. A brief period of

nothingness in between subtitle changes stages the change

to come and prepares the viewer’s attention. Small bits of

staging like this help prepare the viewer by giving them time

and directing their focus to what’s about to happen.

Figure 5. When numbers change in interfaces we can add motion

and directionality—the kind we see in the real world on a train station

flipboard or handheld click-counter—to imply the change faster and

with less mental burden. (View animated figure online)

Number counters in interfaces offer another example of

staging. When the numbers change, they may jump or drop.

The display is accurate whether we simply change the number

or introduce a small pulse or flash before the change. However,

this can leave the viewer bewildered and wondering what the

value was prior to the change. If we add some motion and

directionality—the kind we see in the real world on a train

station flipboard or handheld click-counter—we can imply the

change to the viewer faster and with less mental burden.

Follow-through

Simple easing functions provide enough realism when

animating colors and opacities, but they often feel stale when

they’re used to animate motion. Only factory robots come

to perfectly calculated rest after decelerating. Our world is

filled with soft and imprecise movements, like when we reach

to grasp something, or pull a paper towel off a roll. Allowing

objects to slightly overshoot their final resting place with

a bit of spring makes even futuristic interfaces feel more

real. By adding even a modicum of this springiness to eased

animations, we give motion a sub-perceptual air of life, and

objects a sense of weight and friction they otherwise lack.

Figure 6. Our world is filled with soft and imprecise movements, like

when we reach to grasp something, or pull a paper towel off a roll.

Allowing objects to slightly overshoot their final resting place with

a bit of spring makes even futuristic interfaces feel more real. (View

animated figure online)

If animation is the body language of your

digital creation, then secondary motions are
the micro-expressions that help us tell the
difference between a genuine and reluctant
expression.

This slight springiness can be achieved through timing

functions, too, by overshooting the final value before dipping

below it and returning, like a putted golf ball rolling beyond,

around, and finally into the hole. Note that springs and

springiness don't necessarily belong everywhere, and should

generally be on the verge of being perceived.

Secondary action

Though you might have a favorite dish, it's the combination of

many different flavors and aromas—including some you might

not even realize—that makes it memorable. The song stuck in

your head is just the right balance of notes and harmonies—

some heard, some disappearing into the background.

Similarly, it’s often secondary action that makes an animation

indescribably great. In classical animation, secondary actions

might be the crossing of a character’s arms as she leans

against a wall, or the smoke rising out of a malfunctioning

computer. In these examples the addition of the secondary

actions can spell the difference between tired and coy, buggy,

or sabotaged. If animation is the body language of your digital

creation, then secondary motions are the micro-expressions

that help us tell the difference between a genuine and

reluctant expression.

These subtle flourishes can tint an entire ensemble of motion

to appear more exuberant, joyous, or sober. Secondary

animation also informs us when a gesture has been dragged

so far it cancels itself or becomes a destructive action. When

implemented with restraint, secondary animation is a powerful

tool for making interactions deeply satisfying, communicative,

and human.

The best use of secondary motion never takes attention from

the primary motion, it only bolsters it. Secondary action

helps establish nuance and hierarchy the same way color,

typography, and layout do for text. While it might not be

noticed by untrained eyes, when used sparingly as punctuation

and garnish, it will always be felt.

Figure 7. It’s often secondary action that makes an animation

indescribably great. When implemented with restraint, secondary

animation is a powerful tool for making interactions deeply

satisfying, communicative, and human. (View animated figure online)

Overlapping action

In traditional animation, an overlapping action is a motion

happening alongside the primary motion, but offset in such a

way that it implies a loose connection. For instance, imagine a

basset hound running with its large ears dropping as it jumps

and flying as it lands. These movements largely follow the

motion of the hound’s body, but are offset in such a way that

they appear more like appendages catching up to the hound’s

actions.

One common example of offsetting in digital interfaces is a

collection of distinct elements which all animate in the exact

same way. Offsetting their animation start time so that they

subtly cascade implies a logical connection between the

elements, like pulling on a chain of links, as opposed to rigidly

moving them in together like cookies on a baking sheet.

Offsetting has an added benefit of breaking up the heaviness

of a transition while indicating that each element is distinct and

interactive.

Note that offsetting the animation of multiple similar elements

can increase fatigue for the viewer by splitting what was one

motion to track into many. It’s important that animations

like this be subtle instead of gratuitous, and grouped tightly

whether there are one or 20 of them. Always keep edge cases

in mind while building these interactions. An incrementing

offset that works for the start of three elements might appear

heavy and sluggish for 12.

Pro tip

Reduce your delay for each element following an easing

function or decay formula (like square root) so that as

elements build in, they appear to pick up the pace—like chains

being pulled off a ship by an anchor.

Sometimes it’s nice to give the last element a bit more duration

and punch to punctuate the whole effect—the loose end

of chain whipping out of your hand and overboard. These

effects can be used on more than lists of items loading, just

like overlapping and secondary action apply to more than

animated coyotes and roadrunners.

Figure 8: One common example of offsetting animation start time

in digital interfaces is a collection of distinct elements which all

animate in the exact same way. Offsetting their animation start time

so that they subtly cascade implies a logical connection between the

elements. (View animated figure online)

Appeal

Not every aspect of animation must be purely functional

or grounded in reality. In classical animation, appeal is the

principle of imbuing characters with larger-than-life features,

like youthful eyes, pronounced jaws, or other dramatic

proportions. It’s unintuitive, but sometimes by making

something brighter and bolder than it really is, we make it more

human and relatable.

Appeal serves as the animated equivalent of branding. The

often understated yet familiar click of a cartridge, feel of a

knob, or rumble of an engine in the real world has become

the small explosion of color when we like something a friend

has shared, or the familiar snap and bounce in a gestural

interface. Appeal via animation is an often overlooked way to

differentiate your work and give it the qualities that make it

memorable and familiar.

Principles in practice

Because we’re used to seeing the causality of the world around

us, it can be unsettling when we can’t observe how something

works. The digital interfaces and tools we work with today

benefit from the human affordances, like animation, that tell

the missing story.

The next chapter demonstrates how to put the animation

principles you just learned into the context of a project

workflow. However, no matter the project, by using tried-and-

true animation principles, looking to nature’s analogs, and

studying the techniques of our favorite interfaces, we’ll gain

the skills to animate the lifeless.

Further Reading

Animation principles for UX and UI designers

The ultimate guide to proper use of animation in UX

Creating Usability with Motion: The UX in Motion Manifesto

Jedi Principles of UI Animation

Sculpting Software Animation

Chapter—03

Animation
collaboration
Scale solutions
Great motion design feels obvious and right when we

experience it, but pulling it off requires careful work behind

the scenes. It takes unique collaboration between design

and engineering to transform a dynamic medium into a more

natural part of the world around it, with a rationale for every

move, a shared understanding of the end goal, and a common

language to describe it all.

Like any creative discipline, we see tried-and-true principles

applied in radically different ways by different practitioners

and teams. In this chapter, we’ll take a spotlight to four unique

organizations and their respective approaches to animation.

Include animation at the start

The most dynamic interface animation takes both engineering

and design thinking. Both mindsets have biases, perspectives,

and skills that complement one another. Close collaboration

between the two leads to great work—something exemplified

well by Zova Fitness.

Zova Fitness is a small startup based in Sydney, Australia.

Their fitness app has gained attention for its great content and

the thoughtfully designed experience, which won the team an

Apple Design Award.

Animation Process — Zova (Watch video online)

Animation is a key part of the Zova Fitness experience.

David Fumberger, chief design officer, shared a bit about his

animation workflow. It included the four key steps he goes

through with his team.

Animation is a key part of the Zova Fitness experience.

David Fumberger, chief design officer, shared a bit about his

animation workflow. It included the four key steps he goes

through with his team.

01. The first step is to layer. This means the team includes

animation at the start of the layout process when creating

a screen in a static layout tool.

02. The second step is to move static assets into a timeline

animation app to mock up the animation. This ensures the

concept works and that the animation holds up. That asset

is also useful for the engineers and stakeholders to get an

idea of the direction animation is headed.

03. The team’s third step is to prototype that animation. David

sits with an engineer and uses everything from the static

layouts to the comped animation to prototype it in code—

though he doesn’t build it into the actual Zova Fitness

app. This prototype gives the team a chance to rapidly

adjust timings and iterate on animation variables to ensure

everything fits and flows before its public.

04. The fourth and final step comes after that process of

prototyping is finished; the engineer takes everything and

pushes it into the product. By that point, all the design

details should have been solved.

For David and his team, it’s crucial to consider animation from

the start of the design process. Failing to do so may create

animated elements that feel tacked on or don’t solve a specific

problem.
David also believes designers should be aware of the

limitations of their medium and work with engineers to

understand those limitations. Likewise, engineers should

communicate and help navigate less obvious limitations, such

as data and platform constraints, that might help their design

counterparts.

Small team success

The Zova Fitness team’s workflow offers a few lessons for

small animation teams:

• Include animation at the start of a project

• Build mocks and prototypes to establish a shared

understanding

• Use prototypes to dial in the details

Support the journey

Crafting great motion requires more than images, arrows,

and blueprints; it calls for shared language and motivation,

a consistent set of tools, and methods. For the team at

Headspace, a singular focus on the user journey is the

foundation for an uncompromisingly consistent experience.

Anyone who has used the Headspace app for guided

meditation will be familiar with their quirky educational

animations. They somehow elucidate abstract mindfulness

practices and deal with serious subjects like anxiety and

depression, all while maintaining a feeling of engaged

playfulness.

Animation Process — Headspace (Watch video online)

The design team at Headspace integrates interface animations

into the product in a way that supports people along their

journey. Jon Brennan, senior product designer, and product

designer Christine Cha shared about their process.

At Headspace, they rely on four building blocks of motion

(some of which we covered in the animation principles portion

of chapter two):

• Behavior: the action an object takes, or where it enters the

screen

• Easing: the rate at which something moves from Point A to

Point B

• Duration: how long the animation lasts

• Sequencing: the order of operations

During a transition from one screen or state to the next,

multiple elements move at once; each of the building blocks

above can describe how that movement takes place. As

people go through the Headspace experience, the animations

reinforce the stages of the process and clarify what came

before and what's coming next. Animation helps tie a thread

through it all.

Because it's such a critical part of the product, the animation

process starts just after user research. By starting to think

through animations while the product is still being designed in

wireframes, designers can quickly iterate on and evolve their

concepts.

PRO TIP — Accessible from the start

When you include animation in the design process early, you

also ensure your team enough time to build and test your

animations for accessibility and assistive technologies, or

to design accessible alternatives that surface the same

information another way.

For example, in addition to animating a “pull to refresh”

interface, include accessibility labels or hints that offer an

alternate way to refresh.

One example the team gives is the sleep experience. From a

user need perspective, the app should be smooth and fluid,

and not disruptive to someone’s state of mind. So not only are

the colors muted and dark, but the information is paced in such
a way that nothing jumps out and everything flows smoothly.

Across the app, the Headspace team’s goal is to present a

seamlessly peaceful and serene environment where every

interaction or transition maintains a calm meditation space.

Align on the journey

The Headspace team’s mission to maintain a serene

environment includes these practical tips for working with

animation, which apply to teams of all sizes:

• Establish an environment that every design detail,

including animation, must support

• Align on and communicate the motion toolbox

• Animate at the start of the design process

Animation at scale
As a company scales, making user experiences coherent

across product lines becomes increasingly challenging. At the

same time, the risk of disparate teams duplicating their efforts

in designing interactive elements also increases. For this

reason, design systems have become a popular way to support

the design and development process when building features

more efficiently and delivering cohesive experiences.

Like a good interface, a design system should always guide

us toward the best solutions. It’s important to treat design

systems as living documents, and update them to address

common scenarios, pitfalls, and other problematic situations.

As animation becomes more core to the user experience,

leaving it out of a design system can be a big mistake. It’s a key

component of the user experience, and should be treated as

a first-class design ingredient rather than something tacked

on later with little forethought. At Google, the designers and

engineers working on their design system called Material made

motion a foundational part of the company’s design system.

Richard Fulcher, the UX director of the Material design team,

and senior UI designer Eric Henry explain how animation is

integral to Material with three core principles: motion should

be informative, focused, and expressive.

Informative motion, according to the Material design

system, “shows spatial and hierarchical relationships

between elements, and what will happen if an action is taken.”

Informative motion is akin to what Headspace describes as

motion’s behavior.

Focused motion points to what’s important in a design

or interaction. And expressive motion adds humanity,

personality, style, or brand attributes to a design, playing on

the animation principle of appeal from chapter two.

The Material design system goes on to define and explain how

and when to use motion in interfaces, and provides motion

guidelines to establish hierarchy and how elements are related

to one another. From establishing how to use motion to offer

feedback, to indicating how to offer hints and guidance, the

Material team leaves nothing to chance in clearly defining the

use of motion at Google.

PRO TIP — Codify everything

At an organization as large as Google, it’s impossible for a

single person or team to ensure consistent design practices.

That’s where the Material design system comes into play:

• Document and centralize a single source of truth for all

motion design decisions

• Establish core principles as a north star for all design

efforts

• Thoroughly define every interaction to create shared

understanding of usage

Expressively helpful

While Google’s Material design system is a resource for an

organization at scale, a design system can also support an

organization as it grows. A strong design identity is crucial for

differentiation in a crowded marketplace.

From the pink mustache that once graced the company’s

ridesharing vehicles to their undercover rides with celebrities

like Chance the Rapper, Lyft designs to delight. It’s no surprise

that animation is a core part of their product design process.

Linda Dong, design manager of core design at Lyft, explains

their core animation principles, how they design their

animations for accessibility, and why animation is an important

part of their design system.

The principles of motion at Lyft are be intentional, be

responsive, and be expressive:

• Be intentional: every animation in the Lyft product has a

purpose, whether that’s to direct the riders’ or drivers’

focus to show information changes, or to assist in

navigation

• Be responsive: the product needs to quickly acknowledge

any choices or actions someone has taken, without getting

in the way. It should also shorten the perception of loading

time

• Be expressive: motion should represent Lyft's brand

voice—be bold, simple, and a little rebellious

Together, these principles communicate an animation system

that balances an expressive brand voice (“Hey, we’re Lyft!”)

with an understanding of the real-world scenarios they’re

trying to improve with animation.

These real-world scenarios—usually while someone is driving

or looking for a ride—include designing for accessibility. For

example, notifications might pop up on the screen saying,

"Hey, your driver has arrived." A screen reader should have

time to process that notification before it disappears from the

screen. In designing the animation, it’s very important that the

team sets minimums for animations to make sure someone

actually has time to digest the content before it goes away.

Scenarios like this are represented in Lyft’s motion design

system, the Lyft Product Language, which both teaches

principles of motion and exposes the ethos behind their

particular brand of motion. By sharing principles and ethos

together, designers are better equipped to work with their

teams and evangelize those principles and guidelines.

For the people ultimately using Lyft’s products, the design

system contributes to a more cohesive and intuitive

experience by informing how and when motion should be

executed: is design different for Lyft riders than for drivers?

Where can designers use motion to reduce the perception of

interface load or wait times? When are the best moments for

expressivity?

The moment a team starts designing something, like the

driver arrival notification, is when they start choreographing

motion. For this to work effectively, it’s critical that the design

and engineering teams collaborate on a daily basis and share

responsibilities. This close collaboration makes for the most

efficient use of time and leads to the best solutions while still

allowing for a healthy amount of exploration and refinement.

The job of the Lyft design systems team is to build up the

principles and integrate them into reusable components. This

frees a designer and engineer to simply plug-and-play, safe

in the knowledge that things like timing curves and durations

have been considered carefully. It’s how they ensure that every

animation effort maintains both Lyft’s brand expression and

commitment to supporting its drivers and riders.

PRO TIP — Considerate and appropriate

The Lyft design team maintains a strong brand identity

throughout real-world scenarios as they develop their motion

design principles into reusable design system components:

• Establish bedrock principles for motion that accommodate

a spectrum of scenarios
• Choreograph motion design immediately, with tight

collaboration between designers and engineers

• Across all scenarios, design for accessibility

Advice that scales

As we’ve seen from Zova Fitness, Headspace, Google, and

Lyft, it pays off to consider animation from the beginning of

the design process, no matter the size of the company that

you’re at. Designers and teams who integrate motion from the

beginning will be much more likely to benefit from a cohesive

user experience, increased ease of use, and the overall

delight that animation can bring to a product. Going further,

documenting animation principles and examples as part of a

design system assures that every interaction maintains the

right balance of brand identity, quality, and accessibility.

Further Reading

https://www.ibm.com/design/language/experience/animation/
Understanding motion

Human Interface Guidelines - Animation

Chapter—04

Taking animation
further
Small things matter
In the previous chapters you’ve read how integral animation

is to modern product design, learned about some animation

guiding principles, and heard how a few of the best design

teams bring motion into their workflows. Now let’s take a look

at how you can take animation further with fluidity, nuance,

consistency—and humanity.

Nuance

While many products use animation, few do so in ways that

respect our attention and make us react the right way at the

right time.

When you search for “coffee” in the Google Maps app, the red

pins that mark your options quickly fade in without distracting

you. While Google’s designers might have been tempted to

overdo the animation with a volley of dropped pins calling

for your attention, they were wise to keep the motion to a

minimum.

When we learn new animation techniques, we have a tendency

to go overboard in attention-grabbing ways. But when we

design for real-world contexts and scenarios—like searching

for a destination while biking, or searching in a dense

metropolitan center with dozens of results—digital hand-

waving is distracting and even dangerous. It’s important that

we frequently step back and consider the diverse contexts in

which the animations will be deployed.

With no physical restraints or real-world gravity, it’s natural to

want our interfaces to take giant animated leaps and bouncy

bounds. But the restraint of nuance is all about ensuring

motion adds clear value to the interface without stealing

attention from more important matters. Nuance means

whittling away as much as possible until it’s subtle, felt, and

nearly unseen. The disapproving shake of a password field, for

example, communicates just as much as an animated alert, but

without taking attention away from the task at hand.

PRO TIP

When you replace text with other forms of visual

communication, like the shake of a password field, be sure

to provide accessible ways of informing those who can’t rely

on sight alone. On the web, this might mean setting an aria

attribute like `aria-invalid`. On mobile, it might mean setting a

clearly written bit of accessibility hint text.

In his article “Good to great UI animation tips,” Pablo Stanley

provides a concrete example of how nuanced thinking leads to

better animation design.

“When animating between different states, see

if there are any shared elements between them
and connect them. A good animation uses
transitions like push left or slide up to show the
content on a detail screen. A great animation
establishes a connection between two states
by animating the shared content.”

Figure 1. The example on the left slides in an expanded view of the

tapped content from off screen. The example on the right expands
the tapped content in place to maintain the mental model between

what was tapped and what was presented. (View animated figure

online)

Consistency

Consistency is meeting expectations and intentions. As we

add physicality to the movement of our designs, we must

maintain consistency of motion just as we do for typography,

layout, color, and the like. When we maintain material, spacial,

and physical consistency, we make a product feel more

cohesive, and we encourage discovery by building confidence

and trust. Then our animations communicate not just how

something works, but also the way the digital world around

them functions.

Contradictions between what we expect and what actually

happens introduces a cognitive load that prevents our designs

from becoming usable without exertion—we force our users

to think, rather than make our product feel like an extension

of their minds. Product designer and engineer Austin Sarner

explains:
“…when you need to allow the user to feel
out what’s possible in an interface they’re
touching and manipulating, motion provides
context. It is an extension of their gestures, of
their manipulations. And it guides them as to
what’s possible to do, and encourages them to
explore more.”

Why invest in animation, and where to focus — Austin Sarner (listen

online)

Consistency doesn’t mean everything we do should move with

the same timing for the same duration through every screen.

We just need to ensure that everything we make is influenced

by common principles. Shared components and design

systems help, but like we learned in the nuance section, we

should evaluate all elements in their contexts of use.

In the Tinder app, for example, a core interface principle is that

everything you see on screen is “real.” The interface relies on

a highly realistic card metaphor, with cards so lifelike that they

appear to be cut from paper and could be held in your hand.

While everything you can touch in the Tinder interface

is interactive, different elements act in different—yet

consistent—ways. When you touch and drag a card from the

flash card-like stack, the card “feels” light because of how

it swivels and pivots around your finger. Other parts of the

interface extend offscreen, lending additional weight; when

you swipe to move these other parts, they feel heavier and

move more rigidly. Despite having similar gestures, neither

element’s motion is designed as a variation of the other; rather

they’re designed around a consistent principle.

Figure 2. When you touch and drag a card in the Tinder mobile

interface it “feels” light because of how it swivels and pivots around

your finger. Other parts of the interface extend offscreen, lending

additional weight.

Going further, the simple design of the iOS control center

belies its complexity. The buttons in the control center

use bouncy, overlapping animations to bolster implied

interactiveness. On devices with Apple’s 3D Touch

functionality, certain buttons can be pressed harder to reveal

even more options. Since all the buttons look and animate the

same way, we expect them to react to touch the same. If we

attempt to press buttons without those additional options, our

finger is met with a gentle spring-back animation that implies,

“nothing to see here.”

This spring-back maintains physical consistency by behaving

in a way that makes sense to the rest of the interface. Just like

a house with floors that inexplicably emit odd creaks or doors

that swing of their own volition feels haunted, an interface

that breaks our mental model of how things should behave

adds cognitive load to the experience. Understand and stick

to the principles of your interface to maintain confidence and

promote exploration.

IOS Control Center. (View animated figure online)

Humanity
Things like bikes, door handles, and toasters are approachable

because of their human-geared affordances and clear, intuitive

workings. Digital objects like cell phones, computers, and

microwaves, on the other hand, are so complex that their inner

workings are abstracted and inaccessible without advanced

training.

When digital systems were first built, we lacked the ability

to create the affordances we demand from our software

today. Command line interfaces and hierarchical file systems

reflect machine capabilities more than people’s demands. As

computing advanced and became a consumer product, we

began to bend our technology to be more familiar, intuitive,

forgiving, and inviting.

The approachability of the analog world doesn’t exist in the

digital world, so we use sleight of hand to make the digital

more intuitive. Modern software employs plenty of tricks we

rarely think about to make the digital appear more human.

As animators, we have license to bend the truth to make

something feel truer.

Just because we can teleport images across pixels on a

screen in milliseconds doesn’t mean we should. We can move

things in from off screen to cover what we previously looked at,

like a printer spitting out page on top of page. This fakery gives

us a sense of physical space in a digital environment, which

lets us mentally map both what we see and what’s out of view.

Digital animation serves to humanize software by slowing

down the instant in thoughtful ways. When we reach the end of

a long passage of text, we might come up against a bit of tug

when there’s no more content to scroll. This tug is a playful,

non-jarring indication that we’ve reached the end.

When we have face-to-face conversations, we look and listen

for cues, like hesitations or gestures, as part of a natural

back-and-forth. In our text messaging apps, animated typing

indicators—like the bobbing ellipses that signal someone

is typing—reintroduce humanity to a digital experience. We

should always be on the lookout for non-obvious ways to bring

the human element to our products.

Fluidity

It takes more than snappiness, responsiveness, and gestures

to make an interface feel fluid. Chan Karunamuni, in his Apple’s

WWDC talk, says fluidity “boils down to when a tool feels like

an extension of your mind.” It takes a considered use of motion

to build a tool that anticipates our needs with minimal effort.

Most software interactions—like entering a command or

pressing a button—happen after we make a decision; once

we commit to an action or get a response it might trigger an

animation. Fluid interactions happen while we make decisions,

giving us the ability to redirect, cancel, and change our

decisions mid-gesture—like dragging a file to the trash or to a

folder.

While we can play a defined animation at the touch of a button,

a fluid gesture contains too many possibilities to cover this

way. Instead, fluid interfaces should draw inspiration from the

physical movement of the real world to align motion with intent.

Because these motions are tightly coupled with their related

interactions, they must be designed collaboratively from the

start with interactive prototypes to fine-tune the details.

Animation in games and consumer software — Austin Sarner (listen

online)

Touch the future

Good animation takes principles and know-how, but it’s

refinement and nuance that sets a project apart. Thoughtful

animation introduces humanity to a project, and makes an

interface feel intuitive and alive under our touch. With the

knowledge you now have about motion, you’re primed to

not just animate but to craft interfaces that are a seamless

extension of body and mind.

Further Reading

Transitional Interfaces

Spatial Interfaces

Good to great UI animation tips

Designing Fluid Interfaces