Absence of movement in eLearning can detract from your learning experience since it defies both reality and contemporary UI and UX conventions used in every other application, from operating systems to modern web apps.
Lifeless characters, generic stock photography, and static text and buttons can take your learners out of the learning experience just as much as distractions within your learning content. Effective animation in learning does the opposite, inviting learners into deeper engagement by communicating and providing feedback through the movement of digital objects.
Instructional designers and learning experience designers (depending on their background) often struggle with when and how to use motion. I think this is because most do not have a clear framework for deciding when motion is helpful vs when it is distracting, and so motion often ends up relegated to being perceived as an unnecessary frill. A “nice-to-have” that is also risky.
Then, since it is treated as a risky frill or add-on rather than a necessity, motion gets ignored entirely since we already have a million other things to think about and analyze and only so much time or budget to work with. This is a mistake. I will call this the animation as distraction fallacy.
I think hiding behind the animation as distraction fallacy is a bit of a cop-out. Not to say that movement can’t be distracting, animation can be very distracting indeed if you are using it ineffectively or inappropriately for a learning context. But, throughout my career and my graduate studies, I have read and listened to so much concern about distracting learners. We worry so much about distracting our learners that we push them right out of our boring learning experiences.
What I’m saying is, we need to give equal weight to designing learning experiences that people are motivated to stay in rather than drop out, and motion design should be seen as a critical factor in achieving this.
In the emotional or affective realm of perception, animation is king. Lifelike movement has the ability to engage, delight, and express emotion and personality. Movement is a basic logical extension of human–computer interaction, the way we communicate with our devices and they communicate back to us.
Here are 4 tips for how to improve your eLearning user interfaces with motion:
1. Motion is alive. Objects should respond to interaction.
2. Motion establishes hierarchies. Objects that move are important.
3. Motion follows physics. Purely linear movement is too mechanical in most cases. Learn to use easing and arcs.
4. Keep motion intentional, subtle and quick.
There’s much more to say but in all cases, use motion thoughtfully and with purpose.
