Three myths about micro-interactions

We end up explaining this on discovery calls often enough that it deserved writing down. A few things about micro-interactions that get repeated more often than they get checked.

Consistency is the quiet half of design work: it rarely gets complimented, and its absence is noticed immediately. If it only works because one person remembers to do something, it does not work yet.

“It only matters for big sites”

Feedback on every action tells people the system heard them. The cost of getting this wrong is rarely visible on the day it happens. Most teams find the first pass takes an afternoon and the maintenance takes minutes a month.

“We can deal with it after launch”

Sometimes true, usually expensive. This is the sort of thing that compounds, quietly, in both directions.

“Our platform handles it”

Motion should clarify what changed, not decorate. Small and consistent beats large and occasional here. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.

How to tell if yours is fine

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

If any of that sounds like a description of your current setup, it is fixable.