We normally use After Effects as a way to validate functionality and visual design choices. Showing a client some basic exploratory animations and transitions during the project’s discovery phase could get them really excited about the possibilities and make them want more for their website or application. This kind of exploration of functionality through prototypes can be done in various phases of the design process. It gives them a clear picture of how the end product will look and function. When clients see a slick and finessed animation style in After Effects, they are thrilled. I even have a hard time picturing a UI animation when reading someone else’s documentation. Benefits Of After Effects Speed Up Project TimelineĮxplaining a complex UI animation to clients is really hard. Expressions prove very useful when you’d like to test a particular animation across multiple elements very quickly.Īfter Effects is similar to tweening in Flash. Whereas scripts tell an application to do something, an expression says that a property is something and tells that specific layer or property to animate or transition in a certain way. Again, similar to Flash, which allows users to tween via keyframes or write custom code via ActionScript, After Effects has a built-in JavaScript-based engine that allows for more streamlined animation, without requiring you to create tens or hundreds of keyframes by hand.Īn expression is a little piece of software - much like a script - that evaluates to a single value for a single layer property at a specific point in time. And if you’re a developer, you could have some real fun creating robust keyframe animations through the software’s expression engine. Keyframes provide complex animations with very simple logic. If you remember Flash programming or “tweening” in Flash, then this concept should sound very familiar. How keyframes look in After Effects ( View large version) The points are called frames because their position in time used to be measured in frames on a strip of film. A keyframe in animation is points that define the start and end of any transition. The photo below might look intimidating, with all of those layers and little diamonds (keyframes). Designers realized its power and started using it to show complex interactions and animation quickly and iteratively. For those who do not know, After Effects is Adobe software that, from its inception, has been used to build complex title animations and special effects for film. You may have said, “That looks cool! How did they achieve such accurate transitions like that without any code?” Well, the answer is probably After Effects. Over the past year or so, you may have noticed a ton of really cool UI animations dancing around the interwebs. Real-world physics principles can improve UX. Overview of an After Effects project ( View large version) Creating Advanced Animations In Photoshop.The Art Of Film Title Design Throughout Cinema History.The Ultimate Motion Graphics Tutorials Round-Up.In this article, we will be scratching the surface of how to fit After Effects into your UX workflow, and we’ll share details, advice, experience and links that you could use as influence and thought starters in your next project. Web design transitions and animations, like parallax scrolling, hidden navigation, swiping, pull to refresh, transformations or really any UI transition, are great to prototype in After Effects. After Effects is a great tool that enables us to quickly visualize and test robust animation patterns throughout a web design, share those with the development team and clients, and even test variants with users to get quick validation on a design before it goes into production. We all aim to be as agile as possible in today’s fast-paced web design world, while also remaining thoughtful of the end user and those we work with. In this article, we will be scratching the surface of how to fit After Effects into your UX Workflow, and we’ll share details, advice, experience and links that you could use as influence and thought starters in your next project. After Effects is a great tool that enables us to quickly visualize and test robust animation patterns throughout web design, share those with the development team and clients, and even test variants with users to get quick validation on a design before it goes into production.
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