6 Imaginative Ideas To Use Animation In A Mobile App

We see lots of trends come and go in mobile app design each year. However, one tends to keep its position in the domain of user experience for both web and mobile. We’re talking about motion.

Expressing motion through animation is now among the most important parts of the effective user interface, as it makes it more user-friendly and interactive.

A successful mobile app has an amazing user interface design and an engaging user experience. Animations can come in hand in all cases. In this competitive mobile app market, developers must create products that stand out. When used properly animations reduce cognitive load and make the experience easy to follow.

With all that said well-crafted ones can be very helpful when it comes to mobile app design. However, you need to know when and what type of in-app animation you should use so that they are most appropriate.

If you’re looking for some inspiration, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve listed six imaginative ideas you can use to add motion with the help of animations in a mobile app.

Onboarding Screens

Let’s start from the very beginning of your user experience — the onboarding screens. Developers understand the importance of the process, even though users sometimes like to skip it.

Onboarding helps consumers to become familiar with the app and its functionality. Otherwise, there’s a huge chance they just leave it and never use it again. In fact, 25% of downloaded apps are used once and abandoned. That’s why an intriguing onboarding experience is crucial for user engagement.

That’s where you need to add motion. Static slides are a common approach, but they are rather boring and make the experience almost useless as consumers pay less attention and even skip them. On the other hand, animated walkthroughs are way more effective. You know, engaging onboarding leads to more engaged users.

Animated Launch

People want mobile apps to load instantly. However, with more complex ones this is impossible. So how could you make users wait a couple of seconds for the app to load completely?

Animations are a great tool for distraction. You can create an animated launch screen that distracts users and makes the needed load time appeal way shorter or even instant. There are many options to add animation to the launch screen.

The most common one is an animated logo so that it would look more like an introduction than loading. Of course, you can go more creative and tie an animated launch screen with the whole theme of your app, which can also serve as a nice distraction from the loading process.

Login Screens

If your mobile app asks users to login, you need to think of a way to make the process more user-friendly as it’s usually an annoying one. A way to do that is by adding motion and illustrations on the background, so the login screen is livening up.

A pleasant login screen is essential if you want new users to stick and be willing to spend some of their precious time to log in. Choose the right type of animation so that it doesn’t distract consumers from the actual process.

Additional advice when it comes to login is to not ask for too much. Keep it as simple as possible, because if you want users to provide too much information to log in, even the best animations can’t save you.

Animated Activity Indicators

As we already mentioned, people are impatient and hate waiting. Mobile apps are now developed to work as speedily as possible. However, there are still times when waiting is inevitable, like when you’re installing a new element or content needs to load.

Similar to the launching screen, in this case, you’ll have to make users what to wait for a couple of seconds. An animated progress or activity indicators are a great way to capture users attention, so they could spend these extra seconds while some process happens.

For progress developers often use linear or circular indicators. They could be made more distinctive and creative. You can create an upgraded loading bar with custom animations, that are interesting to users. It’s definitely something you could use your imagination on.

Using cute animals or spaceships to indicate loading is up to you. Just keep in mind that such indicators improve user experience a lot and give consumers more control over the app, so they shouldn’t be underestimated. Still, 47% of users expect things to load in 2 seconds or less, so animations could earn you no more than a second or two more.

Menus

Mobile app menus are another thing you could use your imagination on. Catchy backgrounds and fonts are a nice way to make them attractive. However, some designers prefer to take a step further and use animations in the menu as well, to make the app even more distinctive.

You can still have a basic one but add an ability to swipe and reveal a cute animation, which would be a compliment to users. What’s most important about menus is the easy navigation they should provide. You need to use animations in a way that helps it, instead of distracting users.

Entertaining Errors

We’d all wish errors to never occur. Unfortunately, that’s impossible, at least for now. We all come to an error page every now and then. Even though this could be a major turn off for consumers some error pages could win you, engaged users.

Statistics show that 73,72% of people that reach an error page on a website would leave and never come back. Same goes for mobile apps. We all know the sleeping kitten right?

Illustrations and animations are a way to make these errors funny. That way users will be way more likely to try again instead of just leave or even delete your app. A custom error page helps retain consumers, so an extra effort and some imagination can make a huge difference for their design and the way users take the message that comes with them as well.

Animated Mobile Apps

Adding in-app animations wherever that’s possible is a fantastic way to build an engaging user interface. They’ve become an effective solution for various problems. These were our six imaginative ideas and the best places to use in-app animations.

Remember that all well-crafted motion components, like custom animations, improve the experience and make the mobile app easily accessible and more user-friendly.