According to the author of Designing for Interaction, Dan Saffer, “Micro-interactions are the ‘mini moments’ inside and around a digital product’s features, tasks, and triggers.”

As a subset of UX design, micro-interaction remains an important part of any web design strategy. With the ability to provide constant feedback to site users, they are used to retain engagement and navigate leads from touchpoint to touchpoint.

Think about the times you’ve hovered your mouse over a call-to-action button, and it’s either changed colour or released haptic feedback. This is a micro-interaction.

These nifty design details close an interaction gap between consumers and technology in real time. With a goal to keep leads engaged at all stages of a website journey, these tiny indicators guide consumers through the funnel with ease.

With this in mind, let’s have a closer look at the masterful art of micro-interactions as we share some of the easiest ways you can add them to your own UX design strategy.

The 4 Stages Of A Micro Interaction

There are many different types of micro-interactions. Whether this is a design element that changes on interaction or a feedback feature that guides the user as they navigate a website, there are several different ways you can insert micro-interactions into your UX design.

However, most micro-interactions can be broken down into four key parts:

Trigger: This is the initial interaction stage, signalling the movement or process that initiates the interaction. This could be the hovering of a mouse or the completion of a form.
Rules: Next up, we have the rules of the micro-interaction; this decides what will happen once the trigger has been engaged. Here, a button could turn a different colour, a notification could appear, or a new visual could appear in its place.
Feedback: This is the most common stage associated with a micro-interaction. This is the user’s alert stage. It lets them know the result of their action. This feedback is either visual or haptic if the user is on a mobile device. This is the stage where designers can add personality to their feedback. If you’ve got a charming animation to show your lead, now is the time to do so.
Loops: Lastly, we have loops and modes. These are most commonly seen when a micro-interaction can have multiple outcomes/stages. Think of “this then that” or “if/else.” Loops can be used to guide users through multiple interactions and alert them to the right choice and the wrong choice. Think of filling in your password, for example. If the password is correct, the box will turn green; if the password is incorrect, the box will turn red.

Can Microinteractions Improve Your UX Design?

There are a number of benefits associated with introducing micro-interactions to your web design strategy. Not only can they help retain the engagement of a user, but they are especially helpful for guiding leads to the checkout.

Some of the most notable benefits include:

Improving the user experience
Smoothing out site navigation
Providing instant feedback to impatient leads
Adding a human touch to the UX experience
Focusing the user’s attention on key touchpoints
Encouraging users to interact with CTA buttons for higher conversion potential

Micro-interactions aim to take robotic-like interactions and make them appear as human-like as possible. This introduction of the human touch enables a user to connect to a website’s design features and experience a brand on a one-to-one level.

In order to optimise your web design strategy using micro-interactions, ensure that you’re using a web design tool like Hostinger web builder that allows you to customise your UX design and add animated features that can be tracked.

4 Microinteractions That Could Transform Your UX Design [+Examples]

Now that we’ve learnt more about the benefits of adding micro-interactions to your UX design let’s take a closer look at some of them in action.

Progress Bars: Example – Attention Insight

One of the most common microinteractions on the market is the introduction of the progress bar. We see this type of micro-interaction when something is loading, updating, or signalling that we’re stepping through multiple stages of one process.

A progress bar microinteraction is activated in order to help users set expectations of the duration process of the task at hand. This allows a consumer to be kept in the loop, reducing any unwanted page bouncing as they continue to complete the task.

Attention Insight is a great example of a brand that uses progress bar interactions to its advantage.

As you can see here, their onboarding checklists are accompanied by a progress bar to signal how far users are through the process of setting up an analysis.

Just six months after implementation, the progress bar checklist increased the activation rate by 47% after encouraging users to carry on during a lengthy process.

Adding Personality: Example – Duolingo

Microinteractions offer you a great opportunity to add personality to your UX design. As a user interacts with your trigger point, why not reward them with playful animations, existing visual surprises and audio feedback?

This is your chance as a brand to get creative and hook your audience’s attention.

Duolingo is a brilliant example of a brand that knows how to add personality to its micro-interactions.

When users complete a lesson, they are met with a celebratory animation such as fun confetti or superstars alongside a playful animation from their popular mascot, the owl.

This type of micro-interaction is important for apps like Duolingo. As a learning platform, finding creative ways to reward their users for progressing encourages them to keep interacting with the learning material.

Navigational Highlighting: Example – Grammarly

Many UX designers use micro-interactions to further enhance the navigation process on site. Implementing ‘hotspot’ highlights helps guide a user from touch point to touch point for a smooth UX journey.

Language tool, Grammarly uses navigational highlighting to its advantage by drawing a user’s attention to specific words and phrases on screen. These hotspots are highlighted in different colours, suggesting that they require action from the user.

This is a great use of microinteractions from Grammarly. Their use of hot-spotting is subtle but actionable, making for easy engagement from every user.

Response Bubbles: Example – Snapchat

More conversations than ever before are happening in a digital space. Whether this is with another person or an AI-powered chatbot, it’s never been more important to humanise digitally native conversations.

Response bubbles and typing icons are both essential forms of micro-interaction that alert a user to the activity of the other end of the conversation.

This micro-interaction is triggered when a user begins to type, indicating to the other user that they are crafting a reply.

Take Snapchat, for example. We’re all familiar with the reply bubble that pops up on the screen when the conversation becomes active. This social media giant takes personalisation one step further, though, with the introduction of customisable Bitmojis that physically embody the replied.

Support chats also favour this type of micro-interaction. If a customer can see a response bubble, they are reminded that the chat is live and that a customer service representative has not forgotten about them.

Micro-Interactions Best Practices

As we conclude our micro-interactions guide for UX designers, let’s take a look at some of the best practices you can draw from the examples:

Provide Immediate Feedback: It’s important to provide your users with instant feedback when inserting micro-interactions into your strategy. This ensures that audience engagement with your web design is seamless.
Add The Human Touch: Micro-interactions can build emotional connections between brand and consumer. Ensure that you find ways to be creative and unique as a brand. Using sounds, animations, and powerful visuals can help shape a strong brand voice.
Avoid Intrusive Micro-Interactions: While micro-interactions should attract a user, they should not distract them from their workflow. Ensure that they scale well on multiple devices and do not slow down the user experience for the best results.

Micro-interactions may be small, but their impact on your UX design is mighty in an online landscape that craves an engaging experience like no other.

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