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Animation guidelines for Ux Design

You don’t have options with gadgets these days. They are everywhere, in every shape, size, look and feel. And they, thankfully (try and) serve most needs. At least that is what most people think when a screen appears in front of them. It could be a different matter when they finally enter the site/ app/ widget and find that it is anything but user-friendly and in fact, is quite cumbersome and quite irritating. One thing that has been added for quite some time now is the presence of Animation to most UX designs. Do they enhance the U-experience? Or they make it singularly worse? It could go either way. Today we explain vide a set of guidelines what should and should not form part of UX designs with respect to Animation. And to make life easy, we think of the same in the context of a banking site with the gadget of choice being the ever-present mobile phone.

Read on!

It should make sense!

Finally, why is the animation there on that screen in the first place? Does it serve any purpose? And in doing so, does it make the user’s life any easy? Or does it leave the user frustrated further? If it is the latter, you have lost the plot even before its beginning. Don’t do it because competition does it. Do it as an innovation that shall make your client’s life easy. Try and leave a smile (or in the least, a smirk) on your intended audience’s face.

The Animation used in UX designs should be integral to what you want to achieve.

Think through your wireframes the way you think and plan your marriage. Or even your finances. Would you keep it open-ended, lose and unclear? If so, do not expect a lot from your innovation. Do not take up things like Animation which have strong implications, just on a hunch and that too, at the last moment. Plan things from the very beginning so that they do not seem out of place and provide service the way they are expected to.

Leave no rough edges

Test, test and then, test some more! The best of animation shall still have rough edges given that most are rolled on a super-tight time-line. With most animation developers themselves working on multiple projects with hardly any time between projects, it’s a matter of time before un-intended glitches and un-intended gaps appear on an UX-based animation design. This can be eased out by planning things to the last detail. And all this calls for some level of experience at the hands of the developer.

Leave clear cues and clues. And if you can’t, put it bluntly in words

You are on the banking app and want to progress further but don’t know how. And the screen doesn’t help either. All it takes in such cases is a micro-millisecond for your user to get out and never come back. So, one less a client! And so much money down the drain. And so too, efforts. Here too proper planning helps. If the Animator is good, he/ she would visualize the next step and work accordingly. An arrow in the right place informing the user what to do next would be the best support that can be provided in such cases. CLARITY IS WHAT IS CALLED FOR.

Animations should be used sparingly and it should not hold-up the experience

Banking sites are meant for business. An animation is an out-and-out entertaining medium. To put the two together, you should have a good reason. Animation should be used sparingly given that it could be heavy for the medium and even stall it at times. By keeping it to the minimum, you could achieve both, a realistic and good user experience and giving out the right information.

Keep the brand in mind. ALWAYS.

Animations build a brand and never the other way around. Whatever you do in the name of Animation to enhance UX designs should never, ever be at the cost of the mother brand. If the latter gets affected adversely, you have not done your job. In fact, you have quite clearly done it quite badly. Make the animation on-screen the thing that your clients want to remember for all the right reasons. In doing so, you stand the chance of promoting your brand!

So friends, in case you are contemplating putting Animations in your UX designs, do consider the above points. And hope your app/ site shines through with your efforts!