Author Says UI Is Like Designing an Animation for Disney

A person in a large online design community shared a link to a story on Dribble. This article is about the application of Disney's animation principles to user interface design. The article, written by Renee Fleck, lists those principles and goes into detail about how they can be applied to a user interface. The principles include squash and stretch, anticipation, timing, slow in and slow out, staging, arc, secondary action, exaggeration and appeal, follow through and overlapping action and context.

The author argues that every interaction in a user interface has to be done carefully in order to make the experience an immersive one. These principles from Disney are decades old, but they have stood the test of time. Putting each principle into action at the right time and place ensures that interactions are not an alien thing in a user interface. Readers of the article can find out more about each of the principles and how they can be directly applied to a user interface.

The person who shared the story wanted to know what other web designers thought about it. One person replied that they are not convinced on the principles of drawing or developing a character in an animated movie or cartoon would exactly apply to designing a user interface. They used the squash element as an example of an element that they did not think would apply to making a user interface that people would enjoy.

Another person shared their thoughts regarding the arc element listed by the article's author. They thought applying arc to animations on a website was ridiculous. Several people chimed and agreed with them. Most of the respondents said that while some of the elements listed by the article's author made sense, the arc one definitely did not.

A few people had thoughts to share about agreeing with timing. However, they also argued that a user interface is not a movie. It is not constantly changing or in motion. While an element on a page might be animated for a short amount of time, that is not the case for an interface. For more information click here https://dribbble.com/stories/2020/07/27/disney-principles-of-animation-ui-interactions.