6 Effective Types of Web Animation: Handy Guide with Design Examples

In recent years, animation in user interfaces has been a hot debate among design and development communities. However, this is not a question for users of web products: these days, they seem to expect motion as part of the user experience by default, encouraging designers and developers to pursue increasingly creative experiments. In this post, we will unveil six essential and effective types of web animation and illustrate them with numerous creative motion design examples from the tubik team, showing how motion can enhance web interactions and usability.

The web designs shown below will feature the examples of:

• hero animation
• loading animation
• accent animation
• interactive animation
• hover animation
• motion for special effects

Enjoy and get inspired!

Hero Animation

In web design, a hero image is a term used to describe a prominent, eye-catching image typically found in the above-the-fold zone of a webpage, directly below the website header. With enhancing technologies and innovative approaches, more designers are making hero images animated to make this initial touchpoint of website communication with the visitor even more dynamic, lively, and impressive.

Talking about the benefits of the hero image approach in general and hero animation in particular, we’d mention the following ones:

• Attention and impression. Hero image activates the power of visual perception from the first seconds, and animation makes it even stronger and more appealing. As there is not much time to impress first-time visitors or draw attention to new offers, the hero image gives users a chance to be impressed as quickly as possible.
• Information. Most people perceive and decode images much faster than words. It means that the hero image is not only the element of attraction – it’s also an informative part of the page, providing a quick visual message about the content. Motion can add more traits, making the message even more resonant.
• Navigation. The optimal composition of the hero image can enhance navigation and draw more attention to the call-to-action button.
• Emotional appeal. The emotional background of user experience plays a significant part and makes communication between the website and its visitors more human-like. Hero images especially livened up with motion, are a well-proven way to transfer the needed emotions via images, shapes, and colors, and set the needed atmosphere from the first seconds of interaction.
• Aesthetic satisfaction. Although the offer and functionality of the website are always a priority, people also expect to get their eyes pleased. Aesthetics means much in terms of high competition on the web and rising desirability as a part of a positive user experience. A hero animation is one of the ways to activate aesthetics at once.

Hero section for the home page of the Nesma&Partners website by Origin catches attention and impresses visitors with an animated 3D illustration.

Hero animation on the home page of the Kettmeir website by Studio Idee Matteria

Image carousel animation for the hero section of the Wickside landing page by Society Studios

Loading Animation

One of the essential positive features of interface animation is that it enables communication with the user. Animated interface details can instantly inform you about the processes and stages of progress, usually realized through loading animations of different kinds. Loading animation is one of the most widely used types of UI animation in both web and mobile products: it lets the user instantly understand that the process is going on and sometimes even shows what stage of the process is. The biggest advantage of this animated interaction is providing assurance for the users, making them calm and confident in the process of using the website. What’s more, designers usually strive to make it aesthetic and captivating to contribute to a positive user experience and keep it consistent with the general design concept and brand style.

The home page of the Outfit website by ++hellohello uses catchy multilayered animation and a counter to show the page-loading progress.

Loading animation for search results on the Vitra website by Build in Amsterdam

Catchy loading animation on the Shader Development Studio website

Stylish loading animation for Cellart website by REF Digital

Accent Animation

This type of animation draws visitors’ attention to specific details in the layout, such as keywords or phrases, information blocks, directional cues, brand signs, or interactive elements like buttons, menus, and cards. This kind of motion supports scannability and makes navigation more straightforward and intuitive, while the interaction process gets more lively and dynamic.

Product animation on the home page of the Kettmeir website by Studio Idee Matteria

Accent animation of price for the product page of the Outfit website by ++hellohello

Eye-pleasing header animation as a visual accent for the Cellart website by REF Digital

Interactive Animation

This type of animation adds interactivity to website communication with visitors, amplifying their connection: motion of this kind makes it engaging and emotional, often adding fun and playfulness. What’s more, interactive animation can provide users with instant feedback on their actions; it can support the search or choice process by visualizing different options, enhancing the informativeness of the web product.

Interactive animation for the Vitra website by Build in Amsterdam

Interactive ticker tape animation of the Wickside landing page by Society Studios

Interactive web animation for the product page on Karst Stone Paper website by Love+Money

Special Motion Effects

Another reason to integrate motion into the web page is emotional and aesthetic, rather than logical. With super-tight competition for visitors’ attention on the Web, amid a daily and hourly-growing number of websites, the ability to stand out, impress, quickly capture visitors’ eyes, and engage them to learn more is essential for website creators. A thoughtful balance of utility and usability on the one hand, with emotions and aesthetics on the other, helps make user-friendly websites that communicate with visitors via not only information and functions, but also emotions, fun, and beauty. And motion becomes one of the effective tools supporting that goal. It can mark out the beauty of colors and gradients, breathe life into the layout, make movements dynamic and lively, sharp or smooth, brutal or tender, as well as strengthen the power of UI elements with motion and original transitions.

Attractive and engaging animation for impressive product presentation on More Nutrition website by Future Three

3D animation for PaYard website by Twid Creative Studio

Stylish transition animation for NaughtyDuck website

Water splash effect animation for NaughtyDuck website

Impressive transitional animation on the Shader Development Studio website

Funny 404 page animation by Synchronized

Hover Animation

This type of motion deals directly with web usability and is one of the basic types of web animation expected by default. It is used when a website visitor hovers (moves a cursor on a particular element but doesn’t click it) over a web layout element, and it responds with motion, letting the user know that it’s clickable. So, this web animation type is one of the ways to support easy navigation and quickly inform website visitors about the interactivity of the particular elements. What’s more, when approached creatively, hover animations can also add their two cents to the website’s overall aesthetics.

Hover animation on the ecommerce website for Proper by Manufactur

Hover effect animation for the Ore Bespocke Diamond Jewellery website by Synchronized

Hover effect animation for the information reveal on the Ore Bespocke Diamond Jewellery website by Synchronized

So, based on the numerous examples above, it’s easy to see that there are diverse cases where well-crafted animation enhances the web user experience and increases the usability, desirability, and accessibility of web pages. Nevertheless, designers and developers should analyze both the positive and negative impacts animation may have in a given case to ensure it improves UX design rather than overloading the layout or distracting website visitors. The devil is in the details, so make them work effectively for the users’ sake.

Useful Articles

Here’s a bunch of articles to dive deeper into the theme of usability and user experience design.

How to Use Animation in Mobile Apps

Web Design: 18 Basic Types of Web Pages

5 Basic Types of Images for Web Content

How to Make Web Interface Scannable

How to Design Effective Search

The Anatomy of a Web Page: Basic Elements

Web Usability: Breadcrumbs Design Tips and Practices

Video Content As a Part of User Experience