A short guide to micro-interactions

It is rarely the thing that gets a project approved, and often the thing that decides how it goes. Everything we would tell a client about micro-interactions in the time it takes to drink a coffee.

The measurable part of design is whether people can find what they came for and act on it without hesitating. It is worth deciding this deliberately rather than inheriting whatever the last person set up.

What is actually at stake

Feedback on every action tells people the system heard them. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions. Budget a little time for it every quarter and it never becomes a project of its own.

The practical version

Animations over 300ms start to feel slow. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

What to watch for

Motion should clarify what changed, not decorate. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. Assume whoever inherits this will have half your context and none of your patience.

How to tell if yours is fine

Consistency is the quiet half of design work: it rarely gets complimented, and its absence is noticed immediately. 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

The point is not perfection, it is knowing which of these you have consciously chosen to skip.