Signs it is time to revisit micro-interactions
Most teams know this matters. Fewer have decided who owns it. A few signals that micro-interactions is due some attention.
The measurable part of design is whether people can find what they came for and act on it without hesitating. If it only works because one person remembers to do something, it does not work yet.
The signals
- Nobody can say when it was last reviewed
- The answer depends on who you ask
- Feedback on every action tells people the system heard them
- Animations over 300ms start to feel slow
How we handle it
Motion should clarify what changed, not decorate. This is the sort of thing that compounds, quietly, in both directions. If it only works because one person remembers to do something, it does not work yet.
In practice
Design decisions are the ones clients feel most confident arguing about, which makes it worth separating taste from evidence early. Three things worth confirming about micro-interactions before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- Motion should clarify what changed, not decorate — 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.