Designing Interface Animation

Effective interface animation deftly combines form and function to improve feedback, aid in orientation, direct attention, show causality, and express your brand’s personality. Designing Interface Animation shows you how to create web animation that balances purpose and style while blending seamlessly into the user’s experience. This book is a crash course in motion design theory and practice for web designers, UX professionals, and front-end developers alike.

Table of Contents

PART I: THE CASE FOR ANIMATION

CHAPTER 1 Why You Can’t Ignore Animation

CHAPTER 2 You Already Know More About Animation Than You Think

CHAPTER 3 Modern Principles of Interactive Animation

PART II: USING ANIMATION TO SOLVE DESIGN PROBLEMS

CHAPTER 4 Using Animation to Orient and Give Context

CHAPTER 5 Using Animation to Direct Focus and Attention

CHAPTER 6 Using Animation to Show Cause and Effect

CHAPTER 7 Using Animation for Feedback

CHAPTER 8 Using Animation to Demonstrate

CHAPTER 9 Using Animation to Express Your Brand

PART III: ANIMATION IN YOUR WORK AND PROCESS

CHAPTER 10 Where Animation Fits in Your Design Process

CHAPTER 11 Prototyping Your Animation Ideas

CHAPTER 12 Animating Responsibly

Review

Val Head shows us how to create animation that reduces the cognitive load on our users animation that is not just on the web but of the web and does it in a style that’s as entertaining as animation itself. –Jeffrey Zeldman, author, Designing with Web Standards

This is by far the most comprehensive book on UI animations. Highly recommend to any web designer or developer at any level. The book is great for both professionals and newbies looking to take their animation skills to a new level. –Petr Tichy, front-end developer, Ihatetomatoes.net

Understanding animation is now crucial for designers and developers. This book will help you quickly get up to speed, and Val is the perfect person to have written it! –Dan Mall, founder and director, SuperFriendly

About the Author

Val Head is a designer based in lovely Pittsburgh, PA. Her work ranges from projects on the web to interactive installations to print. She is the author of The Pocket Guide to CSS Animations, teaches CSS Animations on Lynda.com, and hosts the All The Right Moves tutorial screencast. You can find her on stage speaking at events like An Event Apart and encouraging others to do the same as the co-host of the Ladies in Tech podcast. She also co-founded the popular Web Design Day conference, and leads workshops around the world on Interface animation for the web.