The silver bullet for creating buttery-smooth web animations is revealed!

Static’s out, interaction is the new cool.

You’re living a wild fantasy if you think visitors will fall for static website layouts. To get them excited every time they land on your page, web animations shouldn’t even be questioned!

User Experience (UX) is the feeling and emotions visitors carry with themselves when they interact with your digital product.

And let’s get this point straight. People talk!

What they say about the product builds your brand. It’s the #1 force converting first-time visitors into buyers. Engagement, interaction, satisfaction…you name it, UX already got it covered.

Hence proved, UX isn’t over-hyped. at. all.

But here’s the deal: your user experience (UX) shouldn’t feel like user exploitation.

Finding the sweet spot for animation’s duration to keeping the site’s speed intact — there’s A LOT at stake behind the delightful-looking, moving elements.

What is a smooth animation?

You might be thinking; yay, I know animation. But, what in the world is a ‘smooth’ animation?!

So, I’ll kick start by answering it.

• Smooth animation is responsive.
• It remains responsive and blazing-fast on mobile devices too.
• 60 frames per second equal a smooth animation.

Web animation techniques you should live by.

Before diving further into it, let’s establish a common ground. Here, I’m talking animation strictly in terms of the web.

Today, I’m not talking about Disney.

While many of you might only consider Mickey Mouse and Minions to be the only animations, there’s a vast area of web animation that’s yet to be explored by you.

Even when we talk about the opacity or the color of an object, we’re talking web animation. Animation doesn’t have to be about motion all the time.

In web animations, there comes in UI (User Interface) animation, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) animation, and JavaScript animation. It’s a different world and today it’s all we’re gonna deal with.

Now, that we have discussed the basics — I think it’s safe to move towards CSS properties that can optimize user experiences with smooth animations.

#1 Stick to CSS properties that only trigger composite.

To animate an element, you’re going to be modifying its properties. For a buttery-smooth animation, there are 2 properties that should remain a target.

Meet the animation-friendly properties.

transform. With this animatable property, you can play around the coordinate spaces to rotate, skew, and scale the element.

opacity. With this animatable property, you can play around with the transparency level of an element.

#2 Take refuge in will-change.

The will-change CSS property acts as a heads-up for the browser. The browser knows about the changes to expect from a certain element if the will-change property is applied to it.

Knowing how the element will act allows the browser to make the necessary preparations and optimizations way before the element gets changed.

Here’s a treat for making it this far.

With web animations, you are hoping to keep the viewers connected and entertained, even when they are waiting. Yes, EVEN when they are waiting.

But hey, let’s face it. Literally, no one willingly waits and enjoys doing it.

As the user switches from one page to another, they have to wait for it to load. Besides the actual time of waiting for the page to load, there’s a clock inside the user’s head making users ‘perceive’ the time they’ve been waiting for the page to load.

It contributes to the website’s perceived performance.

The secret’s in cleverly making use of this load time to deliver a delightful user experience, while the user waits.

How to attain this, though?

Branded loading animation is the answer.

Studies show that branded loading animation reduces the abandon rate because it’s something out of the ordinary.

Visitors appreciate a hint of branded loading animations instead of generic ones. Not only are they a creative expression of the brand, but also a force to keep the visitors staying back to see the entire animation unfold.

TL;DR

• Animate to provide impactful user experiences.
• Stick to animation-friendly CSS properties (transform, opacity).
• Rely on the will-change CSS property for optimization beforehand.
• Putting efforts into branded loading animations intrigue the users and keep their mind off the loading time as the page transitions.