Motion is the easiest tool to overuse. A little of it makes an interface feel alive; too much of it makes every click feel like waiting. The difference between the two is rarely the animation itself — it's whether the animation has a job.
Before adding one, I try to answer a single question: what does this movement explain? If the answer is "nothing, it just looks nice", that is sometimes fine. But it should be a deliberate choice, not a default.
Give motion a job
Good animation carries information. It can show where something came from, where it went, or that the interface heard you. When a hover state eases instead of snapping, the button feels calmer under the cursor — the change reads as a surface reacting, not a pixel flipping.
The effect is subtle, and that's the point. You would never call the eased button "animated". You would just say it feels better, without being able to name why.
Respect frequency
How often an interaction happens should set how much motion it gets:
- A dialog you see once a day can afford a soft entrance.
- A menu you open hundreds of times should get out of your way.
- Anything on a keyboard path should feel instant.
The same dropdown at two speeds makes the trade-off obvious. The slower one is more dramatic, but drama is exactly what you don't want on the hundredth open.
Past 300ms, a UI animation stops feeling responsive and starts feeling like a decision you made on the user's behalf.
Restraint is a feature
Removing an animation is a design decision with the same weight as adding one. The interfaces I admire most animate rarely — and because they animate rarely, the moments they do move actually mean something.
Less motion, chosen carefully, reads as confidence.