Motion design for mobile apps: How to create engaging, user-friendly experiences with motion design?

Motion Design for Mobile Apps

Getting Started

If you are a mobile app designer or developer, you should learn motion design to make your app stand out from the crowd.

Motion design can help you create a more engaging and interactive experience for your users, which can lead to higher conversion rates and better user retention.

This guide is for anyone who wants to learn motion design for mobile apps, regardless of their level of experience.

How To

1. Define your goals: Before you start designing any animations, you need to define your goals. What do you want your users to feel or do when they interact with your app? Once you have a clear idea of your goals, you can start designing animations that support them.
2. Choose the right tools: There are many tools available for creating motion design for mobile apps, such as Adobe After Effects, Principle, and Framer. Choose the one that best suits your needs and budget.
3. Create a storyboard: A storyboard is a visual representation of your animation. It helps you plan out the timing and sequence of your animation before you start designing it.
4. Design your animation: Once you have your storyboard, you can start designing your animation using your chosen tool. Make sure to keep your goals in mind and test your animation on different devices and screen sizes.
5. Implement your animation: Once you have designed your animation, you need to implement it in your app. Make sure to test it thoroughly and get feedback from your users.

Best Practices

• Keep it simple: Don’t overcomplicate your animations. The simpler they are, the easier they are for your users to understand.
• Be consistent: Use the same animation style and timing throughout your app to create a cohesive experience.
• Use animation to enhance usability: Use animation to guide your users and help them understand how to use your app.
• Test, test, test: Test your animations on different devices and screen sizes to make sure they work well for all users.

Examples

Let’s say you are designing a mobile app for a food delivery service.

You want to create an animation that shows the user how to place an order.

Here’s how you can use motion design to achieve this:

You: First, we need to define our goals.

What do we want the user to feel or do when they see this animation?

Client: We want them to feel confident that they can place an order quickly and easily.

You: Great.

Now, let’s create a storyboard.

We can start with a screen that shows the user the available restaurants.

Then, when they select a restaurant, we can animate the screen to show the available menu items.

Finally, we can show the user how to add items to their cart and place an order.

Client: Sounds good.

How do we design the animation?

You: We can use Principle to design the animation.

We’ll start by designing each screen, and then we can add the animations between them.

We’ll use a simple animation style to keep it easy to understand.

Client: And how do we implement it in the app?

You: Once we have the animation designed, we can export it as a GIF or video and then implement it in the app using our chosen development platform.

We’ll test it thoroughly to make sure it works well on different devices and screen sizes.