--- version: "alpha" name: "Micro-interactions" description: "Design with delightful micro-interactions: small 50-100ms animations, gesture-based responses, tactile feedback, loading spinners, success/error states, subtle hover effects, haptic feedback triggers for mobile. Ideal for landing pages, saas. AI-ready template." colors: primary: "#22C55E" secondary: "#EF4444" tertiary: "#F59E0B" typography: h1: fontFamily: System UI stack fontSize: 2.25rem fontWeight: 700 body-md: fontFamily: System UI stack fontSize: 1rem fontWeight: 400 label-caps: fontFamily: System UI stack fontSize: 0.75rem fontWeight: 500 components: button-primary: backgroundColor: "{colors.primary}" padding: 12px --- ## Overview Design with delightful micro-interactions: small 50-100ms animations, gesture-based responses, tactile feedback, loading spinners, success/error states, subtle hover effects, haptic feedback triggers for mobile. Ideal for landing pages, saas. AI-ready template. Dan Saffer literally wrote the book on this in 2013. 'Microinteractions: Designing with Details' gave us the vocabulary — triggers, rules, feedback, loops. Before that, we were just calling them 'little animations' and hoping for the best. The framework mattered because it forced designers to think about *why* something moves, not just *how*. Then mobile happened. iOS 7's physics-based animations, Android's Material Motion — suddenly users expected every tap to respond, every swipe to feel weighted. The smartphone trained an entire generation to notice when feedback is missing. A button that doesn't acknowledge your press? Broken. A toggle that just snaps? Cheap. Here's the tension though: there's a razor-thin line between 'this feels alive' and 'this is wasting my time.' By 2026, the conversation has shifted from 'should we add microinteractions?' to 'how do we keep them from becoming noise?' Every design system ships them as primitives now. The debate isn't whether — it's how much. - Density: 5/10 — Balanced - Variance: 4/10 — Moderate - Motion: 6/10 — Expressive - **Style:** Interactive, Responsive, Subtle, Engaging - **Keywords:** Small animations, gesture-based, tactile feedback, subtle animations, contextual interactions, responsive - **Era:** 2020s Modern - **Light/Dark:** ✓ Full / ✓ Full ## Colors - **Green** (#22C55E) — Primary surface or dominant color - **Red** (#EF4444) — Error states, destructive actions - **Amber** (#F59E0B) — Warning states, attention indicators ## Typography - **Display / Hero:** System UI stack (-apple-system, sans-serif) — Weight 700, tight tracking, used for headline impact - **Body:** System UI stack (-apple-system, sans-serif) — Weight 400, 16px/1.6 line-height, max 72ch per line - **UI Labels / Captions:** System UI stack (-apple-system, sans-serif) — 0.875rem, weight 500, slight letter-spacing - **Monospace:** JetBrains Mono — Used for code, metadata, and technical values Scale: - Hero: clamp(2.5rem, 5vw, 4rem) - H1: 2.25rem - H2: 1.5rem - Body: 1rem / 1.6 - Small: 0.875rem ## Layout - **Grid:** CSS Grid primary. Max-width containment: 1280px centered with 1.5rem side padding. - **Spacing rhythm:** Balanced. Base unit: 0.5rem (8px). - **Section vertical gaps:** clamp(4rem, 8vw, 8rem). - **Hero layout:** Split-screen (text left, visual right). - **Feature sections:** Zig-zag alternating text+image rows. No 3-equal-columns. - **Mobile collapse:** All multi-column layouts collapse below 768px. No horizontal overflow. - **z-index contract:** base (0) / sticky-nav (100) / overlay (200) / modal (300) / toast (500). ## Elevation & Depth Small hover (50-100ms), loading spinners, success/error state anim, gesture-triggered (swipe/pinch), haptic - **Physics:** Spring — stiffness 120, damping 20. Confident, weighted transitions. - **Entry animations:** Fade + translate-Y (16px → 0) over 480ms ease-out. Staggered cascades for lists: 100ms between items. - **Hover states:** Scale(1.03) + shadow lift over 200ms. - **Page transitions:** Fade + slide (300ms). - **Performance:** Only transform and opacity animated. No layout-triggering properties. ## Shapes Base corner radius: 12px. See rounded tokens in front matter for the full scale. ## Components - **Primary Button:** Moderately rounded (0.75rem) shape. Accent color fill. Hover: 8% darken + subtle lift shadow. Active: -1px translate tactile press. Font weight 600. No outer glows. - **Secondary / Ghost Button:** Outline variant. 1.5px border in muted color. Text in primary color. Hover: subtle background fill. - **Cards:** Moderately rounded (0.75rem) corners. Surface background. Subtle shadow (0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.06)). 1px border stroke. - **Inputs:** Label above input. 1px border stroke. Focus ring: 2px accent color offset 2px. Error text below in semantic red. No floating labels. - **Navigation:** Primary surface background. Active item: accent color indicator. Font weight 500 when active. - **Skeletons:** Shimmer animation matching component dimensions. No circular spinners. - **Empty States:** Icon-based composition with descriptive text and action button. ## Do's and Don'ts - No emojis in UI — use icon system only (Lucide, Heroicons) - No pure black (#000000) — use off-black or charcoal variants - No oversaturated accent colors (saturation cap: 80%) - No 3-column equal-width feature layouts — use zig-zag or asymmetric grid - No `h-screen` — use `min-h-[100dvh]` - No AI copywriting clichés: "Elevate", "Seamless", "Unleash", "Next-Gen" - No broken external image links — use picsum.photos or inline SVG - No generic lorem ipsum in demos - Do Micro-animations 50-100ms - Do Gesture-responsive - Do Tactile feedback visual/haptic - Do Loading spinners smooth - Do Success/error states clear - Do Hover effects subtle ## Use Case Landing pages, SaaS