Kyle kicked off the class with a book recommendation — Micro Interactions by Dan Saffer. It looks like a really interesting read and something I want to get through this semester. I've been trying to be more deliberate about reading lately, I only got through a couple of books last semester and I think there's a real difference between absorbing design thinking through articles and actually sitting with a whole book. The fundamentals tend to live there.
The class opened with a fairly broad definition. Microinteractions are small, contained moments within a product that accomplish a single task — providing feedback, communicating system status, guiding a user through a process. They're suggestive rather than declarative. They show rather than tell. The best ones are subtle enough that you barely notice them, but you'd absolutely notice if they weren't there.
A few examples that came up: the animation when you like a post confirming the action went through, a progress bar filling as a file uploads, the pull-to-refresh sound on a feed, the typing indicator in a message thread. All single purpose, all quietly doing a job.
There was also a reference to the idea that the best interface is no interface — the goal is always to reduce friction to the point where the interaction feels invisible. Microinteractions are a big part of how that gets achieved in practice.
This maps directly onto what I want to explore for this project. For an investing platform like the one I'm thinking about, microinteractions aren't optional — they're the difference between a user feeling confident about what just happened to their money and feeling uncertain. Every confirmation, every loading state, every data update is an opportunity to either build or erode trust.
The class covered six core psychological functions microinteractions serve: Showcasing system status, encouraging user engagement, facilitating seamless interaction, preventing errors, communicating brand personality, and strengthening brand engagement.
What struck me here is how much overlap there is between these and the specific problems an investing app needs to solve. Trust and clarity are the two things users of a financial product need most, and almost every item on this list feeds directly into one or both of those.
There was a useful distinction made between the two. Microinteractions cover both visual and audio feedback — they're about the full sensory response to a user action. Microanimations are specifically about highlighting change and indicating state through motion.
The four key components of a microanimation: the trigger, the rules, the feedback, and loops and modes. That framework is a useful checklist. Before building anything I should be able to answer what triggers this, what rules govern how it behaves, what feedback it gives, and whether it loops or has distinct modes.
Three questions to ask before beginning any microinteraction: what purpose will it serve, how will it improve the user experience, and does it contain any unnecessary details or components. That last one is the hardest to answer honestly but probably the most important.