Designed for Use, 2nd Edition

Explaining State Changes

Visual state changes can easily disorient people. If you’re running a usability test or just teaching somebody how to use a product, often it doesn’t take long until you hear someone ask, “What just happened?”

If you hear somebody say “What did I just do?” or “Where did this go?” or “How do I get back?” it’s possible that you’ve found a problem that could be solved with an animation.

Animating the change between the two states makes the state change and the relationship between the two states obvious.