A practical checklist for micro-interactions

We end up explaining this on discovery calls often enough that it deserved writing down. Run through this the next time micro-interactions comes up.

Consistency is the quiet half of design work: it rarely gets complimented, and its absence is noticed immediately. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

The checklist

• Feedback on every action tells people the system heard them
• Animations over 300ms start to feel slow
• Motion should clarify what changed, not decorate
• Someone is named as the owner
• There is a date to review it again

Why it matters

Feedback on every action tells people the system heard them. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. The version that survives contact with a real deadline is the simple one.

What this looks like day to day

The measurable part of design is whether people can find what they came for and act on it without hesitating. Three things worth confirming about micro-interactions before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Feedback on every action tells people the system heard them — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

None of this needs a rewrite. Most of it is a morning's work once someone decides to do it.