Microinteractions that matter—how to boost UX with small design tweaks

In UX design, the smallest details can make a significant impact on user goals being achieved or abandoned. Enter microinteractions—those tiny design elements that play a major role in turning engagement up a notch and improving overall satisfaction.

Although subtle, microinteractions are the magic dust that transforms a decent user interface into an outstanding one by adding functionality, context, and continuity to the user experience—plus a little charm!

A microinteraction is a small, often overlooked, single-purpose element in a user interface that provides instant feedback, guidance toward task completion, or a sense of accomplishment.

They’re those happy little moments that promote further interaction with your digital product. The swipe on Bumble. The progress bar on Instagram Stories. The validation of a green checkmark on a form. That sort of thing.

They’re designed to provide immediate and contextual feedback to encourage users to move forward. Despite their transitory nature, microinteractions hold a lot of power in UX design, directly influencing user perception, defining brand personality and improving engagement. As Mauricio Nicoletti, CCO of the product development firm Capicua, notes:

They can take many forms, from the ones mentioned above to buttons, animations, sounds, and more. Microinteractions ultimately serve to guide users and make digital interactions feel more personal.

Of course, they aren’t must-haves, but without these thoughtful design touches, your site or app can feel stale, sterile, and impersonal compared to those that do, leading to reduced satisfaction and engagement.

These interactions are as much art as they are science, with four ingredients that are the building blocks of every microinteraction.

When should you start working these into your planning process?

Ian Lawson, founder of Slickplan, a company that builds website planning tools, put it like this:

Microinteractions are the unsung heroes of UX/UI design that quietly provide positive reinforcement, reduce user frustration, and help with error prevention.

Well-designed microinteractions that clearly define the system status can guide users through tasks effectively and increase engagement.

Check out these highly effective examples from the apps and sites you know and love:

Some apps thrive on user clicks, while others have found a new way to boost engagement: the swipe.

A core part of Tinder’s brand identity is wrapped up in this microinteraction. And although this has become standard on essentially all dating apps due to the fluidity of the motion and now-intuitive feel, you can find swiping in Slack and Gmail too.

These provide feedback on how much content remains, setting expectations and encouraging users to either stick around to finish what they’re watching or explore further if it’s too long for their taste.

Snapchat, YouTube Shorts, IG Stories/Reels, and many other social platforms incorporate the progress bar, along with blogs like HubSpot.

Waiting for a page to load is no one’s idea of a good time. A dynamic loading page keeps users engaged during those wait times, reducing perceived delays and creating a more seamless user experience.

You’ll find these across all industries and companies—Dropbox, Trello, Figma, DraftKings, United Airlines, etc.—on both mobile apps and desktop sites.

These are so ubiquitous that you hardly even notice them. In fact, they’re so common that the absence of these subtle animations is jarring.

A delightful way to enhance user experience and acknowledge achievements, these tiny digital prizes give you the dopamine boost to keep going.

If you’re learning a new language on Duolingo, for example, you know how encouraging that streak animation is. It’s muy bueno, magnifique, and downright wunderbar!

Filling out forms online is something we’ve all done, and the microinteractions involved are something we’ve all taken for granted.

They’re often as simple as red X’s, green checks, or user input boxes turning red or green depending on the info that’s entered. No need for checking manually or an error message. The system responds to a user instantly, confirming their actions or highlighting where invalid data or user errors require correction.

As Dan Saffer notes in his seminal book Microinteractions: Designing with Details:

How nice is it to know exactly when your chat partner is typing? Any messaging app worth its salt has by now put in place methods to keep users informed on what’s happening on the other end of the line.

Whether it’s the three dots in a chat bubble on an iPhone or the “so-and-so is typing…” text on Slack or WhatsApp, there’s always an indicator—one that maintains conversational flow and builds anticipation.

For a fascinating dive into the history of the typing awareness indicator, SFGate tells the tale of its invention by IBM in the late 90s.

Tooltips work wonders in many areas, but a couple that shine are onboarding and error correction. These tips are now commonplace system feedback when you sign up for most apps, where they offer immediate guidance or clarification without disrupting user tasks.

The other stellar use case is in tools like Grammarly, where a user triggers a microinteraction in the form of underlining a misspelled word or broken grammar rule and presenting the corrective tip when hovering over the mistake. It’s simple and effective, with no learning curve.

Few examples of microinteractions are as crystal clear as the “Like” button, a tool that encourages interaction and emotional engagement with content and skyrocketed interaction across Facebook first and then the rest of the social apps that adopted it.

We’ve now seen this extend beyond social to booking platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com, for example, where you can tap a little heart and save the accommodation—a user action that also triggers the automatic creation of a save list.

So far, visual cues have dominated this list, but there are other ways to provide feedback and confirmation of actions taken in the digital world.

The camera shutter sound on your phone (or mirrorless camera) is a fine example because, well, your phone has no actual shutter. The “camera click” sound you hear when snapping a selfie is an added microinteraction that confirms you’ve taken a pic.

This is the type of feedback that creates a tactile connection between you and your devices. It’s feedback you can literally feel.

From the iPhone that vibrates when you turn it to silent mode to the lock screen vibration when your phone can’t read your fingerprint right or you punch in the wrong code, these microinteractions help users understand that something went wrong.

Microinteractions are a core element of user-centered design principles because of their key role in improving and guiding user interactions.

They can be personalized based on user behavior, offering moment-of-need feedback that increases engagement. By creating small, tasteful, and sensory-rich interactions, designers can build emotional connections that enrich the overall user experience and provide a human touch that helps users complete their goals.

Nicoletti of Capicua adds:

Implementing microinteractions effectively requires a skilled and restrained touch. There is such a thing as too much, and once you cross the line, you immediately enter the territory of annoyance.

Keep these three tips in mind to make sure you’re enhancing UX without overwhelming users:

Microinteractions should always support the main task, not distract from it.

If every step on your checkout page, from payment details to shipping info, triggers complex animations, you’re slowing down progress and introducing friction that can give users time to second-guess a purchase.

Users expect immediate feedback; any unnecessary delays will lead to frustration.

A button that takes several seconds to change color and also spins and shakes or an animation that requires seconds of loading time will draw attention away from the task at hand and hamper user flow.

Inconsistent microinteractions can confuse users and disrupt the flow of the experience.

If you’re providing visual cues with some buttons, while others that look the same only have haptic feedback and yet others change colors when tapped, you’re ultimately causing confusion about whether the action has been registered correctly.

The easiest way to avoid falling into these mistakes is through a user testing phase. Let a small batch of users navigate your app or site, get their feedback, and resolve any usability flaws they point out.

Microinteractions are the underappreciated champions of user experience design, and while they may be small, their impact is mighty. By focusing on these subtle details, you can create more engaging, intuitive, and user-centered products.

If you’re ready to take your UX design to the next level and create smoother UI interactions, incorporate thoughtfully crafted microinteractions into your projects and watch as user satisfaction, retention, and engagement flourish. Remember, it’s the little things that make a big difference.

Check out Envato for a huge selection of creative assets to improve your UX, from icons to graphics and much more. And read our articles on key UX design principles and web design trends.