Animation gives the visual appeal you see on a website and this is why most sites have adopted it. However, there is more to it than just the appearance. Web animation will also improve the experience of visitors by making things more polished and smoother. The following are the 5 top uses of web animation and how helpful they can be in your effort to get more engagement.
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Animation Reveals Information
If your effects are animated, the message will get home better and clearer. Animation is used as a communication aid; animation will reveal more information as the user clicks or hovers over certain areas. When there is a box that crawls from the site, a slow fade or UI card spins, the user will get the revealed information better than when it just appears from thin air. In addition to giving you a chance to add delightful character on the site, animation will make the revelation of information less jarring. A good example is what happens on Flickr, there is a slow fade when users hover over the images.
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Transition
Windows with new information are not the only jarring elements in user-site interactions. When scrolling, switching pages and tabs or activating buttons on the site, animation can be a great benefit. To avoid abrupt changes noticed by the human eyes, motion during transition will help a great deal.
A good example is the Take It app. There is use of transitional animation and you will notice it as you scroll down through the pages. The same 6 images will change and move with you. This makes the move fun, comprehensive and smooth. This will help a great deal in the demonstration of the purpose and points of each of the pages that you view.
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Notifications
As mentioned, eyes are attracted to motion and this means animated effects are the best way to make an announcement when there is a change. Such animation is highly useful in sites such as ecommerce websites. This is because it can assist in the creation of immediate gratification of an in-shop purchase.
There are ecommerce sites that use an animated ‘+1’ which will fly to the shopping cart at the top. This tells the user they have added something to the cart and draws attention to the cart telling them that they can check out what they have added in it.
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Emphasizing
The fact that motion attracts attention is useful in more than just the notifications. It can help in directing the user’s focus on a particular area of the page. A slight motion will grab the user’s attention. This is as long as you do not have other moving elements on the screen. This explains why the cursor blinking on text fields makes it easy to find it when it is idle.
Sites use such motions to attract attention to important areas of the page such as crucial instructions. This is especially the case where there might be many details that lead to the user not focusing on some of the important parts. The important thing is to keep things subtle to avoid giving the site a spammy appearance.
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Delight
In some cases, animation is use for delight purposes. The animation will mostly be employed to avoid distractions that might interfere with the user’s experience. This includes things such as missing pages and loading time. Using motions that are activated by scrolling or hovering can add life to what would otherwise be a boring page. A lot of people would rather see some motion on a page they are visiting than stare at content that looks boring.
When adding animation to your website, it is important that you ensure that it is done right because overdoing will do more harm than good. To be on the safe side, you should consider working with professionals in the industry and if you are here, you are in the right place.
