Animations should be felt, not seen

I love the democratization of the web and the rise of tools that make building products more accessible. Platforms like Framer, Webflow, and AI tools like Lovable have made it easier than ever for designers to bring ideas to life. Faster, cleaner, and with far less friction than before.

But with great power comes… questionable taste.

One of the areas that’s become a bit of a creative playground (and sometimes a battlefield) is animation.

Don’t get me wrong, I love animation. Animation is what gives a product life. Without it, a digital experience can feel like a body without a heartbeat. But there’s something important we need to talk about: the overuse of animation.

“Animations should be felt, not seen”

I first heard this principle years ago when I worked at SAITS, and it has stayed with me ever since. It’s become my personal golden rule.

What does it mean? - It means that when motion feels natural, subtle, purposeful, and restrained - the user won’t consciously notice it. They’ll just feel it. It’s the difference between an experience that flows and one that flickers.

Take Apple as an example. Remember the old Genie effect on macOS when minimizing a window? At first, it was delightful, a bit of visual magic. But it also drew attention to itself every single time. It was animation as a spectacle.

Now, compare that to something like the Dynamic Island animation on the iPhone. When you mute your phone or start a timer, it morphs seamlessly, almost invisibly. You don’t see an animation - you feel a reaction. The motion communicates state and intention without stealing the stage.

That’s what it means for an animation to be felt, not seen.

When I was a junior designer, I added transitions to everything. Hover effects, button states, modals - you name it, I eased it.

It looked “smooth”. It also made everything feel slow.

What I didn’t realize back then is that motion carries weight. Even a 50ms transition, when repeated hundreds of times in a product, can create the illusion of lag. A thoughtful interface feels responsive, not dramatic.

For example, hover transitions on heavily used UI elements often do more harm than good. They interrupt the flow, especially when users are moving quickly. In these cases, the best animation is no animation at all.

Animation is a design tool, just like color, typography, or layout. But tools don’t make you a better designer.

Your ability to know when and why to use them does.

Good motion design enhances clarity.
Great motion design disappears into the experience.

So next time you’re building a landing page or prototyping an app, ask yourself:

• What purpose does this motion serve?

• Does it help the user understand what’s happening?

• Does it feel natural and consistent with the rest of the experience?

• And perhaps most importantly - if I removed it, would anything break?

If the answer is no, maybe that animation doesn’t need to exist.

Because at the end of the day, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

As designers, our job isn’t to decorate interfaces, it’s to craft experiences that move people, often in ways they don’t even notice.

That’s the beauty of being subtle. When done right, animation doesn’t scream for attention, it quietly earns it.