Agent Skills: Interaction Motion Craft

Interaction Motion Craft

Overview

Apply interaction and animation craft as a behavior system, not decoration. Motion must communicate causality, preserve context, and stay interruptible under real usage frequency.

Mandatory Use Cases

• Navigation transitions, modal/sheet presentations, list reordering, drag/gesture UI.
• Loading/skeleton/progress states, success/error confirmation, hover/focus feedback.
• Any request containing animation polish, interaction feel, delight, fluidity, snappiness.

Workflow (Required)

1. Define event chain: trigger -> transition -> resulting state.
2. Declare intent per motion segment: orient, emphasize, confirm, warn, or defer.
3. Decide coupling: real-time (during gesture) vs commit-time (on release).
4. Select principle set (below) and reject non-functional animation.
5. Validate interruptibility, reduced-motion behavior, and performance budget.

Core Interaction Rules

• Motion must explain what changed and why.
• Gesture-linked feedback should start immediately and follow input direction/velocity.
• Prefer reversible transitions; avoid locking users into long non-interruptible sequences.
• Maintain object constancy: source and destination should be visually traceable.
• Repetition penalty: high-frequency interactions require subtle motion; novelty decays fast.
• System coherence: one motion language across product (easing, duration, spatial direction).
• Keep gesture semantics stable across surfaces (same gesture family, same intent class).
• Avoid threshold-only dead zones: show coupled response from first movement, then apply thresholded commit logic.

Timing + Frequency Budget

• Interaction response onset: immediate perceptual feedback (target <=100ms).
• Micro interactions: typically 120-220ms.
• Structural transitions (screen/sheet/context shifts): typically 220-450ms.
• Repeated interactions (tab change, like, toggle): stay on the lower end.
• One-time onboarding/celebratory moments: may run longer if skippable and rare.

Frequency x Novelty Matrix (Required)

→ Consult full interaction article reference for rationale and boundary cases.

• High frequency + low novelty: optimize for speed, predictability, and low cognitive load.
• High frequency + high novelty: reject by default; allow only with measured task benefit.
• Low frequency + low novelty: acceptable utility baseline.
• Low frequency + high novelty: reserve for signature moments, onboarding, or milestone feedback.

Risk-Based Trigger Timing

• Reversible/continuous interactions: allow during gesture updates.
• Irreversible/high-impact actions: prefer commit-time transitions plus explicit confirmation states.
• If accidental activation cost is high, bias toward staging and clarity over expressiveness.

Touch Ergonomics + Occlusion

• Ensure finger/pointer does not hide critical feedback during manipulation.
• For precision handles/sliders, preserve control continuity when touch exits narrow hit areas.
• Use temporary reveal/magnification patterns if direct-touch obscures target detail.

12 Animation Principles -> UI Translation

• Squash/Stretch: communicate state elasticity (press, drag resistance) without breaking readability.
• Anticipation: pre-cue significant movement (small pre-motion before large change).
• Staging: isolate primary action; suppress competing motion.
• Straight Ahead/Pose-to-Pose: key-state-first for UI transitions; avoid uncontrolled frame drift.
• Follow-through/Overlap: secondary elements settle after primary object for realism.
• Slow In/Out: ease-in/ease-out for natural acceleration curves.
• Arcs: prefer curved trajectories for floating objects and gesture-driven movement.
• Secondary Action: add supportive detail only if primary action remains clear.
• Timing: duration communicates weight/importance.
• Exaggeration: use sparingly for feedback clarity, not spectacle.
• Solid Drawing: preserve believable volume/depth cues in 2D/3D transforms.
• Appeal: motion style aligned with brand/product character.

Failure Modes (Blockers)

• Delayed response after input (UI feels disconnected).
• Decorative motion with no semantic payload.
• Mismatched easing/duration across components.
• Uninterruptible long transitions.
• Motion that obscures hierarchy or causes tracking loss.
• No reduced-motion fallback.
• High-frequency workflows depend on novelty-heavy motion for baseline usability.
• Gesture commits without clear intent confidence in high-risk actions.

Output Contract

• For implementation tasks: include intent map, selected principles, and timing rationale.
• For reviews: list failures by severity and provide direct remediation.
• Always state reduced-motion handling.
• After substantial motion changes, route final sign-off through design-audit.

Related Skills

• design-audit - objective sign-off gates for complete design quality.
• design - high-fidelity frontend implementation once motion rules are set.

Source Basis

• https://rauno.me/craft/interaction-design
• https://www.userinterface.wiki/12-principles-of-animation
• references/rauno-interaction-design.md