Think Smaller: To Become Top Performers, Companies Need Micro-Interactions

What are Micro Interactions?

What is the difference between a good digital product and a fantastic one?

The answer lies in micro interactions (sometimes also called micro experiences), which are single interactive moments that optimize workflow and make a digital product more enjoyable for the customer. This is crucial to creating an experience design that helps boost business growth.

Micro experiences can perform a broad range of tasks, such as guiding the user through a process, verifying that an action has been completed, and aiding the user while troubleshooting. Often, they come in the form of short, functional animations.

Excellent micro interaction design requires understanding the users, their goals, and the steps they need to take to get there. The interactions should be placed with a specific purpose and work with the design instead of taking over it.

Why are They Important?

Micro interactions form one of the pillars of a smooth customer experience journey. This is the customer’s end-to-end experience, instead of touchpoints or individual transactions.

Paying attention to the full customer journey as opposed to only touchpoints can drive more successful business outcomes. For example, McKinsey found that, in health insurance, customer satisfaction is 73% more likely when the full journey operates well.

However, design is often not given the attention it is due. Only about 50% of companies that McKinsey surveyed carried out user research before creating their initial design ideas.

5 Examples

It can be easy to miss micro experiences, as they tend to be small and subtle. However, they infuse the user experience with delight. Possibly the best example of this is button animations, wherein a button may change color when clicked, hovered over, and so on.

Here are 5 more examples of micro interactions:

• Toggle switches: These are often used in UX design to allow users to switch between two modes, such as show/hide, open/close, and so on.
• Slider controls: Sliders use levers or knobs moved horizontally to control a variable, like screen brightness or radio volume.
• Progress bar: These allow users to be aware of the steps they are taking to move through a process via a visual representation.
• Push notifications: These encourage users to carry out certain actions or bring joy to them. For instance, Duolingo’s notifications are famous for engaging their users.
• Mouse-over effect: This improves experience design by informing users that they are going to click on the correct place for the goal that they are trying to achieve.

The 4 Parts of Micro Interaction

There are, according to Dan Saffer, Sr. Staff Product Designer at X (formerly Twitter), four parts of a micro interaction.

1. Trigger

A trigger is a moment when a user action, system response, or event initiates a micro interaction. One kind of trigger is a toggle, which switches between functionalities

2. Rules

Rules determine how interactions respond to a trigger, ensuring that they follow consistent, clear patterns.

3. Feedback

Feedback provides real-time responses to user actions. These responses convey to users that their actions have been acknowledged.

An example of feedback would be a “ping” sound to recognize that a message has been successfully sent.

4. Loops & Modes

Loops and modes determine how micro experiences change when repeatedly utilized. They produce a continuous flow that prompts repeated interactions and contributes to user engagement.

An example would be a looping, loading animation to keep users engaged while waiting for a page to load.

Improving UX Design

Enhance Usability

The user should be kept informed about the current status of the process occurring on the product. Interactions such as progress bars and loading spinners improve usability by providing this information, thus reducing frustration during the waiting period.

Engagement During Loading

High loading time can cost companies business.

For example, according to Statista, for mobile internet users, the longer the page loading time, the more a user is willing to leave the site.

Animated loading screens can be utilized to keep users engaged and entertained as they wait for the page to load.

Guiding Users

Menu animations and tooltip pop-ups guide users by providing visual cues and additional information. Hence, navigation for the user becomes easier.

Emotional Connection

Using a website is often a practical task, but micro interactions can transform these tasks into joyful experiences. For instance, a whimsical animation that comes to life after a successful form submission can bring a smile to the user’s face.

Note, however, that animations should be used judiciously and follow the tone of the brand.

Data Input

Confusion and frustration in users can be reduced through password suggestions, error statuses, and so on.

Conclusion

For companies to become top performers, they must invest in micro experiences. The internet is not what it was in the 1990s or early 2000s, and the average person’s expectations for experience design are higher than ever.

Micro experiences, when done well, can make people think positively about your brand and alter their actions. It can, however, be difficult for an in-house team to set aside the time and resources required for excellent design.

Silverskills is your partner for experience design that unlocks hidden business value. We devise creative workflows, deploy advanced technologies, and utilize micro interactions to create a seamless customer experience journey. Our user experience designers build an architecture that is functional, robust, simple and efficient.

Contact us now for digital transformation services that place the user at the heart of the digital experience.