Smooth transitions, animations, and microinteractions represent an important factor when creating enjoyable user web experiences. All UI/UX designers can use the Figma Smart Animations feature to add motion to their designs without needing to write code.
Animations are created to guide the user through the website and catch their attention to spend more time on the website. You can use either small microinteractions or more complex transitions that will surely ensure a more intuitive navigation experience.
Smart Animate from Figma represents an advanced feature that is specially designed to allow UI/UX designers to create smooth transitions between animation frames in their project’s prototypes. Based on its technology, it is able to automatically animate the change between two frames using matching layers that have the same name and properties.
So, when two animation frames share similar or even identical elements, the Smart animation feature from Figma will introduce different properties such as opacity, position, or scale to ensure a smooth animation without needing to adjust de keyframes by hand.
The Figma Smart Animate represents a useful feature, especially for creating animations for UI components such as navigation menus or buttons.
As mentioned above, the Figma Animate feature allows designers to create smooth and seamless animations and microinteractions between different frames, so naturally, it works by scanning for matching layers across animation frames based on their position, naming, and also the hierarchy of the UI components.
After this process is complete, Figma analyzes and identifies various differences between the frames in order to implement a transition in the design. It should be mentioned that the Figma animation can be implemented to the entire frame, a single user interface element, or a component, which gives UI/UX designers the ability to create different animations.
In Figma Smart Animate, you can find different properties to create smooth and attractive animations:
- Position: This Figma animation feature is able to recognize a layer that changes its position in a frame, and allows designers to move it smoothly from one placement to another. Also, designers have the option to move the objects from outside directly into the frame to make sure that users have the best experience.
- Opacity: Figma animations allow users to change the opacity in order to make an element disappear or appear in the frame.
- Scale: designers can create elements and objects that change their size from one frame to the other, which represents an ideal feature for those designs that feature zooming in or out animations.
- Rotation: Here, UI/UX designers can choose the angle in order to make a certain element spin, which adds an animated effect to your project.
1. Design your frames
You should start by creating two different frames that contain the same element, a button, for example. Then, in Frame A, you position and style the element in order to change its color or position in Frame B. It’s important to make sure that this element can be found on both frames, but with different properties.
2. Use the Prototype tab
Select the Prototype tab and connect the two animation frames using a flow link. Now, you can select the interaction that will trigger the animation, like “While Hovering”, or “On Click”. Make sure to select the interaction that you want users to be done by users to showcase your created animation.
3. Select the Animation to Smart Animate
Directly in the Interaction Panel, you must choose Smart Animate as a transition to automatically animate the changes made between Frame A and Frame B. Then, you will be able to adjust different animation settings, such as duration or easing to make sure that users see a smooth transition.
4. Preview your Figma Animate transition
After the creation process is done, you can click the Play button in Figma to enter directly into the Preview mode. Here you can interact with your created transition to see if it's smooth enough to maintain user engagement.
If you are struggling to make it work, make sure that the layers in both frames share the same name to allow the Smart Animation to work without issues.
Smart Animate must be an easy and enjoyable feature that streamlines the design process. Using this advanced feature, you can significantly improve your projects and make them stand out from the competition. Make sure that you follow all of the important steps in order to create a smooth and engaging transition for your UI elements.
We at uinkits understand the importance of great user experiences and creating amazing UI designs. That’s why we’ve developed a Figma UI Kit with design components that include these essential UI elements that enable you to design intuitive and user-friendly interfaces effortlessly.
“You press the button, we do the rest.” – Kodak.
Inspired by this iconic tagline from Kodak, we believe in simplifying the design process for you. Our Figma UI Kit, uinkits, is a complete design system with UI components that allows you, as a UI UX designer, to create your products as quickly as pressing a button.
Our design system includes UI components, icons, variables, cards, buttons and everything you need for your design process. All you have to do is take your UI design component needed, and you’re ready to use it in your designs!
