From Flash to animated gifs to javascript, there are a variety of ways to add animations to a website. Moving graphics can be a helpful addition, but should be used with a degree of care. As with all options, used properly, animations can improve the visitor's experience and augment your message. Used improperly, however, and animations can distract, annoy, and delay the viewer.

The first rule for using animation is to make sure it doesn't hinder the user. Having balloons float around the web page might look cool and provide a festive feel, but it also threatens to get in the way as the user tries to read your page's content. Big flashing changing images can attract the eye, but can also distract it from the point you are trying to make.

Introductory animations are especially prone this sort of problem. Although these openings may be attention-grabbers the first time someone visits, they quickly grow boring, even annoying, after a few replays. Bypassing links can be useful for minimizing this effect, but the problems with such introductions do not end there. People are impatient; when they come to your site from the search engine, they want to be provided instantly with the information they are searching for. These sorts of introductions, thus, are excellent for sites whose primary function is to entertain. Informative sites, which may very well include sites that exist to inform about products, receive limited benefit from these additions.

You should also consider your SEO when considering animations. A web page that only contains a Flash intro has no content, which greatly limits SEO. If it is the main page to your site, the search engines will see that your main page has no keywords. Better optimized pages will rank higher, and at that point, the introduction isn't useful at all.

This is not to say that animation is a bad thing to add to a site. However, it is a tool, one of many tools available to a skilled web designer. As with any option, using it solely for the sake of using it is never a viable option.

So how do you use animations? Ideally, you want to utilize them where they can be entertaining and attractive without drawing attention away from main content. Button links, of course, are classic places. Although these animations are subtle, they can improve the user's experience by augmenting the appearance of interactivity. If there are circumstances where your website is loading other content, a brief animation can distract the user from the delay. A scrolling set of links can allow you to display more options in a limited amount of space. And, naturally, you can use animation to attract attention to sections of the page that you want the viewer to notice.

What it comes down to is that movement draws attention. The goal is to draw attention towards key parts of your website. Used in that manner, and animations can help direct the user to the places and pages you want them to view. If you simply animate things to see them move, you will only draw the eyes away from the more important parts of your site.

About the Author

Dustin Schwerman is the head web designer for Truly Unique--Affordable Custom Website Design. Truly Unique specializes in creating highly customized, visually impressive websites at affordable prices.