SVG Animations

Chapter 5. UI/UX Animations with No External Libraries

In the previous chapters we’ve mostly covered standalone SVG animations. In this chapter, we’ll go over more common use cases of UI and UX elements that can be implemented with SVG and animated with CSS. In particular, we’ll work through a common UX pattern of a transforming icon, which will allow you to see how something is built from start to finish, integrating the workflow into your own development process.

Animation gets a bad rap sometimes, often because we don’t consider its power. When users are scanning a website (or any environment, or photo), they are attempting to build a spatial map. During this process, nothing quite commands attention like something in motion.

We are biologically trained to notice  motion: evolutionarily speaking, our survival depends on it. For this reason, animation, when done well, can guide your users. It can aid and reinforce these spatial maps, and give us a sense that we understand the UX more deeply: we retrieve information and put it back where it came from instead of something popping into and out of place.

Context-Shifting in UX Patterns

Before we get into how to build typical UI/UX interactions into SVG animations, let’s go over the why. It’s important to get the technique down, but it’s just as important to use animation correctly.

Have you ever had a day at work where people kept interrupting you and putting you to different types of tasks? Work feels more frustrating when you ...