Animation Documentation

Animation documentation specifies motion behavior in design system components, ensuring consistent and purposeful animation across products. This documentation covers timing, easing, triggers, and the principles guiding motion decisions. Proper animation documentation prevents jarring inconsistencies and helps developers implement motion that enhances rather than distracts from user experience.

What Is Animation Documentation

Animation documentation describes all motion aspects of design system components and patterns. This includes entrance and exit animations, state transition animations, loading animations, and micro-interactions. Documentation covers technical specifications like duration and easing as well as design rationale explaining why motion exists and what it communicates.

Animation documentation connects to design tokens for motion values, providing a single source of truth for timing and easing specifications. It also addresses accessibility concerns, particularly for users who prefer reduced motion.

How Animation Documentation Works

Effective animation documentation operates at multiple levels. Foundational motion principles establish the philosophical approach to animation, such as whether motion should feel energetic or calm, whether elements should animate simultaneously or sequentially, and what motion communicates about system state.

Component-specific documentation describes animations for individual components. A modal component might document its entrance animation, exit animation, and any internal animations. Specifications include duration in milliseconds, easing function names or cubic-bezier values, and properties being animated.

Video or animated examples demonstrate motion in ways static documentation cannot capture. Some documentation systems include animation previews that show motion at various speeds or with different timing values. These previews help developers understand specifications in context.

Key Considerations

• Motion tokens should define standard durations and easings that animations reference
• Reduced motion alternatives need documentation alongside standard animations
• Animation triggers should be explicitly documented including what starts and stops animations
• Performance implications of animations, especially transforms versus layout changes, warrant documentation

Common Questions

How do teams document complex animation sequences?

Complex sequences involving multiple elements or stages require structured documentation. Timeline diagrams show when each animation starts and ends relative to others. Staggering patterns document delays between sequential element animations. Video recordings with frame-by-frame breakdown help communicate timing nuances. Some teams use animation tools like Lottie or Rive that export specifications alongside animations. Documentation should balance completeness with usability, providing enough detail for implementation without overwhelming developers.

What reduced motion documentation do design systems need?

Reduced motion documentation addresses users who enable prefers-reduced-motion settings. Every animation needs a documented reduced motion alternative, which may be no animation, reduced duration, or simplified motion. Documentation should specify whether reduced motion eliminates animation entirely or uses subtle alternatives. Implementation guidance explains how to detect user preferences and apply alternatives. Some teams document reduced motion behavior alongside each animation, while others maintain separate reduced motion guidelines.

Summary

Animation documentation ensures consistent, purposeful motion across design system implementations. Documentation spans foundational principles, component specifications, and accessibility alternatives. Visual examples and motion tokens support specifications that static text alone cannot fully communicate.