No Result
View All Result
Subscribe
The Designest
  • Home
  • Design
  • Freebies
  • Toolbox
  • Tech
  • Tutorials
  • Inspiration
  • Digital Art
  • Home
  • Design
  • Freebies
  • Toolbox
  • Tech
  • Tutorials
  • Inspiration
  • Digital Art
No Result
View All Result
The Designest
No Result
View All Result
Home Design

Psychological Impact of Animation and Motion Graphics in UX Design for a Mobile App

Have you ever thought about how animation affects your mobile app user's psyche and attitude toward a brand?

Dana Kachan by Dana Kachan
June 24, 2020
in Design, Inspiration
3
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

So often we are allured by what we see. We like eye candies and keep bright images in memory for a long time. Humans are visual creatures. We perceive 80% of information visually. And we trust in what we see. With all these factors mentioned above, it’s not difficult to estimate the power and impact of animation and motion graphics on the user experience.

Today, designers don’t use them only to entertain mobile app users. An animation is a powerful tool for user experience balancing and in-app crisis management. It can smooth sharp edges and infelicities of UX design and drive user engagement at the same time. There are many ways the animation influences the user’s psyche and the overall mobile app perception. In this article, I’m going to consider a few of them.

  relevant:
12 UX Design Trends for 2020 April 3, 2020
Next
Prev

You Can Use Animation as a Crisis Management Tool to Eliminate Negative User Experience

Have you ever heard about in-app crisis management? Actually, I’m not sure such a term exists at all. However, it perfectly describes what I’d like to discuss here. There is nothing perfect in the whole Universe. So, probably some random mobile app (not yours, of course) is imperfect too. If the user faces some technical issues or bugs, he or she naturally feels discomfort, disappointment, and even irritation. It’s what I name a critical situation in a mobile app UX.

Expired tickets error screen by Yannis Abelas
Expired tickets error screen by Yannis Abelas

Luckily, there are plenty of ways to soothe the user’s pain and eliminate discomfort: in-app digital illustrations, funny texts begging the user about forgiveness, and so on. However, there is one more method, and it’s likely the most actionable of them—the animation.

The power of animation lies in its ability to work as eye candy, switch the user’s attention from a problem to fun, or suggest an alternative option at a particular step of the user experience. It can transform the negative user experience into an exciting adventure and provide an excellent opportunity to express the app creator’s creativity once again. Genius and creative decisions often come to our minds when we’re stressed by a critical situation. Here are a few examples of how you can manage the negative user experience using animation.

Error page by Roman Lopatko
Error page by Roman Lopatko

The Animation Helps Avoid The User’s Cognitive Overload

There are many well-known types of in-app animation, like function change, progress, loading, navigation micro-interactions, animated notifications, pull-down menus, and various kinds of visual tips. If applied efficiently, they can help you decrease the user’s cognitive load. Are you maybe wondering what is cognitive load? You can find a short definition below.

The cognitive load in UX design is the mental processing power needed to use a product. If the volume of information to be processed exceeds the user’s ability to handle it, the overall product usability suffers, and we name it cognitive overload.
Nav Bar Animation by Ilya Sablin

The animation can help minimize the cognitive load by focusing the user’s attention on the key information. It can highlight important details in a text copy, motivate to take needed actions to move to the next step in a journey, assist on how to navigate an app, inform about the action completion, and more. You can use animated texts, navigation micro-interactions, and animated heroes to help people use an app even more efficiently and unlock all its features.

Multi-player interaction by Mauricio Bucardo

However, you should also keep in mind that the animation helps reduce cognitive load only if it’s unobtrusive, relevant, and beneficial. Otherwise, it distracts the user’s mind and increases the cognitive load.

In-App Animation Increases The User’s Psychological Comfort

Mostly, we feel calm when we are well-informed and clearly understand what’s going on around us. For the same reason, progress and loading animations improve user experience, informing users about the progress of processes in a mobile app. It helps people feel like they keep more control over the process and can predict its outcome.

Progress bar by Fabien Dorville
Progress bar by Fabien Dorville

This psychological hint works at the level of subconsciousness, allowing users to feel emotional comfort and increasing overall satisfaction from using an app. It might look not so important at a glance. However, let’s think of mobile apps related to financial transactions, banking, smart home controlling, enterprise process automation, or even remote attuning of e-charging stations serving electric vehicles.

UI design for a mobile app by Fireart Studio
UI design for a mobile app by Fireart Studio

The mobile app users responsible for the management of important processes would thank you for adding progress animation that provides additional information to them. There are many situations where monitoring the progress of a specific process can be critical to mobile app success. Loading and progress animations can play a more significant role in the user’s psychological comfort than we only might imagine.

Fun Animation Drives The User’s Mood & Loyalty

There is no big secret. We are loyal to brands that offer us entertainment. The same model can be applied to the user experience design for a mobile app. The animation is a perfect tool to incorporate fun and humor into the user experience. From animated comical texts and amusing bubble-looking micro-animations in the menu to funny animated heroes to risible GIFs—there are many ideas on how to make people smile or even burst out laughing.

Wizard Preloader by Aslan Almukhambetov for Fireart Studio
Wizard Preloader by Aslan Almukhambetov for Fireart Studio

There is nothing better for driving user loyalty than to make them smile. Animation can provide additional user satisfaction. You can use funny images, jokes, and visual metaphors at different steps of user experience to drive even more user engagement and loyalty to a brand.

Recipe Finder by Serhii Hanushchak for Yalantis
Recipe Finder by Serhii Hanushchak for Yalantis

Animation Can Assist The User Throughout a Whole Journey

You might already guess that I’m going to mention navigation animation and visual tips. They can be particularly useful for improving user experience design for a mobile app. When a person uses an app for the first time, it might be challenging to understand how to navigate it or find some features. The visual tips help a lot in such situations.

The navigation animation includes various design effects, slight shaking, spinning, or highlighting buttons or icons. While visual tips can be displayed as GIFs or short animated explainer videos appearing on the screen after you click an interrogation mark or “Help” button in the user interface. Also, you can design an animated hero that brings the mission of assisting and guiding the user throughout a whole journey.

Conclusion

The animation and motion graphics are handy tools that can help UX designers to make the user experience more harmonious and enjoyable. They can enhance a general impression from a mobile app and ensure the user’s psychological comfort. Hopefully, these several in-app animation insights and ideas will inspire you to do new creative experiments on your next mobile app development project.

Tags: AnimationCharactermobileUI/UX
Previous Post

Freebie: Plastic Texture Pack

Next Post

112+ Best Cosmetic Mockups — Free & Premium

Dana Kachan

Dana Kachan

Dana is a digital marketing consultant, growth hacker, and author of plentiful articles about design, emerging technologies, product launch, and marketing on digital media, such as Yahoo Finance Singapore, Creative Bloq, ReadWrite, HackerNoon, and others.

Related Posts

Best Drawing Software in 2022 For Your Creativity

by Milena Abrosimova
June 29, 2022
9

We’ve collected the best free art programs and paid software for you to always have a wide choice of creative...

Graphic Design Portfolio: Complete Guide with Examples

by Alina Yakovleva
June 15, 2022
0

Make the audience recognize your talent with a distinguished graphic design portfolio! And here you'll learn how to build a...

45+ Best Poster Mockup Templates

by Alina Yakovleva
May 26, 2022
2

Enrich your toolbox with an outstanding poster mockup template! The only problem with that collection is that it's too hard...

45+ Best Handwriting Fonts

by Alina Yakovleva
May 24, 2022
2

Soft curves, bold lines, charming decor — that's why handwritten fonts are so hard to resist. And there is no...

130 Eye-Catching Color Combinations For Design Enthusiasts

by The Designest Staff
April 27, 2022
2

An endless flow of color inspiration in every scheme and image!

11 Most Renowned Ukrainian Digital Companies and Design Studios 

by The Designest Staff
April 22, 2022
0

All of the most significant services and design companies from Ukraine you should surely know about!

Next Post

112+ Best Cosmetic Mockups — Free & Premium

Comments 3

  1. Jitin Mishra says:
    2 years ago

    Animated motion UX support webmaster to reduce bounce rate and keep visitors engaged.

    Reply
  2. corvMTI says:
    2 years ago

    Very interesting topic, would you please share some related reading here?

    Reply
    • Dana Kachan says:
      2 years ago

      Hi!
      I’m happy to hear it from you. 🙂

      I believe you can find interesting insights on this topic in our new eBook created together with product designers from Fireart Studio. Its title is “Business-Oriented Digital Product Design”, but actually, it’s more about humans and their interactions with technologies. You can find it here: https://fireart.studio/book/. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy it! I will be happy to hear your feedback.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Popular Posts

  • 60+ Best Photoshop Text Styles & Effects

  • 20 Best Places To Sell Your Digital Design Online

  • 35+ Best Cap Mockup Templates

  • 35+ Best Halftone Brushes

  • 40+ Best Metal Fonts

Envato Elements
with Envato Elements membership

Categories

  • Design (72)
  • Digital Art (27)
  • Freebies (71)
  • Inspiration (40)
  • Other (3)
  • Tech (17)
  • Toolbox (123)
  • Tutorials (50)
Youtube Facebook Instagram Dribbble Pinterest Twitter RSS

Subscribe

The Designest

Weekly Email Updates

We got tons of fascinating articles, videos and freebies for you every week!

SUBSCRIBE

Design Blog

  • Design
  • Digital Art
  • Freebies
  • Inspiration
  • Other
  • Tech
  • Toolbox
  • Tutorials

About Us

Welcome to The Designest — a professional design blog aimed to deliver fresh news & trends of the industry as well as the most essential courses & tutorials you must have been searching for.

Company

  • Advertise with Us
  • Contact Us
  • Cookie Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions

© 2022 The Designest — Professional design blog aimed to deliver fresh news & trends of the industry

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Design
  • Freebies
  • Toolbox
  • Tech
  • Tutorials
  • Inspiration
  • Digital Art

© 2022 The Designest — Professional design blog aimed to deliver fresh news & trends of the industry

Subscribe to Regular Updates
We got tons of fascinating articles, videos and
freebies for you every week.
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.