Designed for Use, 2nd Edition

Avoid Unimportant Animations

As we’ve just seen, movement at the periphery of our vision simply can’t be ignored. Our attention is naturally drawn to it. If there’s a tiger sneaking through the bushes, you really, really don’t want to be the last person to start running away. Unfortunately, the part of your brain responsible for this behavior doesn’t know the difference between a tiger and an animated ad.

This kind of animation can drive people mad and make it impossible for them to focus on the actual content.

Use animation only if you truly want to interrupt your users and force them to look at something and if the animation is used to convey ...