Use Interface Animation Videos

Every app or interactive website has a user interface (UI) – a panel through which users interact with the digital product and fulfill their use goals. Modern products are usually feature-rich and diverse, but not all of them are intuitive enough for the user to find their way quickly. As a result, many early app adoptees do much guesswork and get confused at each process step. A good way to solve this issue is user interface animation.

UI animation has emerged as a way to guide users through all nuances of an app’s use and avoid the most common errors they commit without knowing the UI functionality inside out. User interface animated videos can also alert the users about status changes, influence his in-app decisions, and visualize the relationship between elements. Here we introduce you to the video animation for UI and explain how to do it effectively.

How Can You Animate Your App UI?

The first step is to see UI animation’s power not as a fancy addition to your web design but as a valuable, practical tool for user onboarding and interactions. Next, you should pick between the decorative and functional animation types.

  • Functional animations guide the users in real time, giving them prompts depending on their actions and suggesting the next steps.
  • Decorative animations are used for branding and promotion. They tell stories and communicate the value and features of specific products or features but don’t interact with users.

To spice up your website with UI animation, consider adding the following animated elements:

  • Educational prompts. These prompts are part and parcel of the user onboarding process. They usually feature animated text, labels, and menu sections to show the whole course of app use in a user-friendly manner. Such animations can also include an animated character (a brand representative) who educates the users about features and explains how to use the app.
  • Micro-interaction labels. The set of animated micro-interactions can quickly welcome a user to a new app. These micro-interactions are the buttons, boxes, and menus you have in the app. The animation shows what happens by clicking or choosing any of them and what a user should start with.
  • Loading and progress animations. It’s much easier to wait for the operation to complete if a user has a visible progress bar and watches it move to 100% completion.
  • Storytelling elements. This type of animation doesn’t offer any functional value, but it’s still valuable in terms of brand consistency and esthetic appeal. Such animations attract the users’ attention and instill easily recognizable brand images in their memories.

How to Enhance UX with Animation

UI animation is a powerful tool for user experience (UX) enhancement. Such videos explain the app’s logic and walk the users through every function and feature, showing what happens if they click on specific buttons or choose particular options. Such visual guidelines increase the app’s usability and reduce the onboarding time. In other words, well-designed UI animation can make your app human-centered, intuitive, and responsive to different users’ needs.

This way, animated videos change the traditional mechanical feel of a website or application and give it a lively, interactive look. As a result of watching UI animated videos, users grasp the digital product’s features much quicker, getting a much more positive user experience throughout. Besides, animation can be really fun to watch if it’s done in the form of cartoons and offers an engaging experience.

To achieve real utility of your UI animations, you should consider the following recommendations:

  • Avoid redundancy. It’s too overwhelming to have multiple UI elements in various website sections, especially those duplicating each other.
  • Keep it logical. The UI animation should be consistent; it shouldn’t confuse the users.
  • Make relationships visible. Animated elements work best to clarify the relationships between various app elements and functions. So, use them accordingly to help users find their way instead of overwhelming them.
  • Simplify everything. Make UI parts embedded into your original design instead of adding them as a new UI layer. This approach will ensure a natural, easily comprehensible website layout that people will love.

Best Ways to Showcase Your UI with Animated Explainer Videos

The process of animating your UI and offering a handy visual guide to your users is pretty simple if we get down to basics and recollect the original principles of animation. You can diversify your users’ experiences and achieve better usability by implementing:

  • State changes. It relates to both successful and failed states, which the user will quickly remember and use as guidance in his in-app actions’ success. It’s much easier to inform the user about a state change with the help of a fun motion graphic video.
  • User attention grabbers. You can use animation to attract user attention to specific areas of your app or website. This method may work to achieve better sales, conversions, or user onboarding.
  • Feedback tools. Animation also works great as a feedback piece, giving users a clear idea of what action they performed and whether it was successful.
  • Navigation improvement prompts. Animated elements can reduce user frustration by giving them an idea of their current stage, remaining steps, and the total number of steps. This way, you can reduce the cognitive overload of users interacting with your product.
  • Interaction prompts. Animation is often used to visualize the UI controls. For instance, when you move the mouse or finger on a particular tab, a pop-up animation can show what will happen upon clicking it.

As you can see, there are tons of ways to use motion design videos for user interface, which is a sure way to enhance your app’s UX and simplify user interactions. Think over these UI animation variants, compose your ideal mix, and reach out to broader audiences with superior digital products.

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Libby Austin

Libby Austin, the creative force behind alltheragefaces.com, is a dynamic and versatile writer known for her engaging and informative articles across various genres. With a flair for captivating storytelling, Libby's work resonates with a diverse audience, blending expertise with a relatable voice.
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