A guide to effective motion guidelines in digital products

Before you jump into motion guidelines, it is helpful to define who they are really for. Are you targeting designers, developers, agencies, or all three? Having a sense of your audience allows you to dial up the right tone and level of detail. You will also want to take into account where you are in the life of the product. Early projects may require loftier concepts, whereas established products demand detailed designer and dev specs to abide by. Lastly, consider the best way to present these guidelines—perhaps an accessible website, an Figma library with interactions, or a well-organised PDF.

1. Understand motion’s role in UX

Motion is not just eye candy; it is a key player in user experience. When done right, motion makes an interface feel alive, offering instantaneous feedback and guiding users through tasks in a more intuitive way. Whether it is a subtle button animation or a sliding transition between screens, consistent motion principles can help users predict what is going to happen next. This predictability is what turns random animations into seamless interactions.

A quick bounce or colour flash on a button confirms a user’s tap. That instant reaction saves them from wondering, “Did my tap register, or is the app stuck?” Consistent transitions, say sliding left to move forward and right to go back, allow users to mentally map your product’s structure.

2. Set Clear motion principles

At the heart of motion guidelines are a few core principles that keep animations from becoming either chaotic or boring. You don’t want them so vague that every designer does their own thing, but also not so rigid they stifle creativity. The sweet spot is a unified approach that ensures consistent brand expression without killing innovation.

• Motion as usability: Quick open/close states, fast transitions, functional feedback that doesn’t distract. Think about toggles or modals that appear or disappear promptly, giving clarity.

• Motion as delight: Fun details or celebratory animations that inject personality, like a playful bounce when a user completes a checkout process.

Material design’s three key principles include:

• Informative: This principle is all about clarity; motion is used to show spatial relationships or highlight available actions. It helps users intuitively understand how different elements on the screen are connected or how they can interact with them.

• Focused: Movement should always serve the task at hand. No unnecessary distractions or random animations. It is about keeping things purposeful, so users stay focused on what matters most at any given time.

• Expressive: This principle injects personality and flair into the user experience. Whether it is a smooth transition or a fun animation, expressive motion celebrates key moments or reinforces your brand’s vibe.

IBM’s Distinctions

• Productive motion: Designed for efficiency, this type of motion focuses on fast, functional animations that help users interact quickly without distraction. It’s clean, simple, and to the point, serving utility over showmanship.

• Expressive motion: These animations are more about impact than function. They’re creative, attention-grabbing, and help inject some personality into the experience. Whether it’s for a key action or a special transition, expressive animations bring the brand to life and add a touch of excitement to everyday interactions.

3. Define the library of motion building blocks

Once your principles are set, consider establishing a library of motion building blocks. These building blocks, or “motion scales,” define how objects, time, and effects interact.

• Duration: Think in terms of “Extra Fast” (T1), “Fast” (T2), “Normal” (T3), “Slow” (T4), and “Extra Slow” (T5). Each category suits different UI elements—an error message might need a quicker response than a welcome screen. Some teams even develop a dynamic formula for timing, factoring in object size, distance, or complexity, so that bigger or more complex items animate slower than tiny icons.

• Easing: Easing patterns (like ease-in, ease-out, or a simple linear approach) inject natural pacing into your animations. A purely linear movement can look robotic, whereas a gentle ease-out feels more lifelike. Maybe your product design demands a “productive ease” for functional tasks—quick transitions that don’t distract—and an “expressive ease” for brand moments or big transitions.

• Effects: Effects add the finishing touch to your animations. They can be as simple as a fade-in or as elaborate as layered transforms. The key is consistency: categorize them as “animate-in” or “animate-out” and maintain similar speeds and motions so users know what to expect when something pops up or disappears.

• Choreography: Choreography comes into play when multiple UI elements move simultaneously. Maybe you’re navigating from a home screen to a detailed view, and multiple cards slide out while a modal zooms in. The idea is to keep the user oriented, highlighting what’s most important, and ensuring no piece of the animation feels random.

Approaches to choreography

• Complex vs simple: A screen transition might move a container full of elements (complex) or just shift a few key items (simple). Choose whichever keeps the interface clear, not cluttered.

• Principle-based: If your main principle is to focus user attention on key elements, you might fade everything else slightly.

• Narrative: Some UX flows need a bit of a story, guiding the user with each step, like a tutorial.

• Accessibility: Offer a “reduced motion” setting or shift from lots of moving elements to simple container moves if a user has motion sensitivity.

4. Document motion patterns

It’s not enough to just define durations and ease types. Document how and where these animations show up, with real examples. For instance, “Form interactions: Input fields slide up from the bottom on focus, taking 200ms with an ease-out curve.” Offer code snippets or resource links so devs can implement these patterns without guessing. Common contexts include:

• Navigation: Sliding transitions between primary pages or modules.

• Form interactions: Subtle glows or expansions on hover or focus.

• Notifications: Crisp fade-ins from the top or corner, then a gentle fade-out after a set duration.

5. Prototype, test, and iterate

Prototypes allow you to drive your motion guidelines in a real setting, so you can work out kinks before you ship code. Create interactive demos using tools such as Figma, Adobe XD, or Principle. That way, your team gets to see how the animations look and feel together, rather than isolated from each other.

• Interactive demos: Show start and end states, plus how elements move between them.

• User testing: Watch how people react—does it clarify the journey or confuse them?

6. Develop motion assets (and keep them updated)

Once you are confident in your motion guidelines, create reusable assets—like animation components or partials—that devs and designers can drop into different parts of the product. Hosting them in a central library makes updates easier and ensures consistency. You can pull it off in the following ways:

• Identify common animations: Think toggles, pop-ups, card flips—whatever your product uses repeatedly.

• Build modular components: Keep them flexible so they can adapt to various screen sizes or use cases.

7. Review and iterate

Motion guidelines aren’t “set it and forget it.” They’ll need tweaking as your product evolves or as user expectations shift. Keep an eye on analytics: if people are skipping a certain animation or complaining about motion overload, adapt accordingly. Gather feedback from devs who use your library daily, and run user tests to ensure animations are truly adding clarity—not clutter.

8. Train your team

To make sure all this work doesn’t go to waste, everyone, from the junior designer to the lead front-end dev, needs to grasp how motion guidelines apply to their tasks. Host workshops, create short video tutorials, or even do one-on-one training sessions. The more comfortable your team is with these principles, the more likely they will apply them correctly.

• Share real examples: Show them how motion guidelines solve specific UX problems or keep branding consistent.

• Encourage questions: If a developer’s not sure how a certain easing curve works, address it right away, so it doesn’t show up incorrectly in the final product.