How to Add Life to Digital Displays with Nuanced Animation

In a world where digital screens have replaced analog displays in everything from phones to fuel pumps, the sheer number of digital visual messages seen by a consumer in an average day has created sensory overload.

This has made catching the eye and engaging the average viewer an increasingly difficult task. As graphics get flashier and more intense in an effort to stand out and attract attention, there is a real risk of incurring the opposite result.

So how do we ensure that visual messages reach our audience, especially those presented via digital signage or computer screen?

This challenge requires going back to basics and communicating with on-screen motions that are so instinctually ingrained in the human mind, that they can be accomplished without any special graphics training.

Even without sound, emotion can be conveyed through movement and gesture. Experts tell us that 58 percent of communication is through gesture, 38 percent through tonality and only 7percent through actual words. That is because the human mind is capable of detecting even the slightest changes in facial expression or posture in other humans, such as visual clues about mood or intention.

This also carries over to our ability to perceive intentions in other life forms. For instance, when we see a cat crouch and tense its back legs, we anticipate that it is preparing to pounce.

This same subconscious ability to recognize patterns, and disruptions in patterns, allows us to detect unnatural changes in rhythm and pace of everyday objects and occurrences: the dripping sink that suddenly stops, that strange pinging sound your car is making this morning.

But how does this apply to animation?

The answer is simple: familiarity in movement and pattern makes it easier for the viewer to absorb a message. The more your movement emulates real-life, the less work the human brain has to do to bridge the gap between the real and the artificial.

That is not to say that the messages are fake, but rather that the viewer is less likely to be distracted by incongruous information, and more likely to understand what you are attempting to convey.