Motion systems for web interfaces are no longer optional flourish; they shape perceived performance, guide attention, and make interactions feel coherent. In 2024, 2025 the landscape shifted: libraries matured, browsers gained native features, and design systems embraced motion tokens as first‑class design artifacts.
This article walks through the practical pieces of modern motion systems for the web: browser APIs, popular libraries and tooling changes, accessibility and performance tradeoffs, security and supply chain lessons, and the design patterns teams use to keep motion purposeful and consistent.
Why motion matters in interfaces
Well‑designed motion clarifies state changes, provides continuity across navigations, and reduces cognitive load by showing relationships between UI elements. When motion is purposeful, it acts as a language that explains where things came from and where they are going, which is especially important for complex single‑page apps and content‑heavy sites.
Design teams increasingly treat motion as an accessibility and UX concern rather than decoration. That shift is reflected in guidance such as Material Motion and published motion token sets from organizations like NRK and Norton, which frame duration, easing, and animation types as part of the core system.
From a business perspective, motion contributes to perceived speed: smooth micro‑interactions and page transitions make apps feel faster even when network latency is unchanged. That insight explains why frameworks and platforms invest in native transitions and optimized animation paths.
Browser features: View Transitions and the Web Animations API
Two browser‑level technologies are central to modern motion systems: the View Transitions API and the Web Animations API (WAAPI). The View Transitions API, surfaced via document.startViewTransition and the ::view‑transition pseudo‑elements, offers a native way to create smooth page and state changes without hand‑rolling complex DOM diffing or huge libraries. MDN now hosts documentation and guides that explain lifecycle hooks and customization options.
The Web Animations API is the standardized programmatic surface for DOM timing and control: Element.animate, Animation, and KeyframeEffect provide predictable timing control and playback features that map closely to browser internals. MDN maintains WAAPI as the recommended low‑level API for programmatic animation on the web.
Major routers and frameworks are beginning to wrap these native features. For example, React Router added experimental view‑transition helpers and unstable props that let navigations be wrapped in startViewTransition, enabling app‑like page changes with fewer custom hacks. This trend reduces the need for third‑party code while leaning on browser optimizations.
Libraries and tooling: Motion, GSAP, and Lottie
The library ecosystem continues to evolve. Motion, the independent project spun out of Framer Motion on Nov 12, 2024, introduced vanilla APIs and broader framework support; the team cited Framer Motion’s popularity, with over 4.5 million weekly npm downloads prior to the split. Motion focuses on layout‑animation optimizations and minimizing bundle impact.
GSAP (GreenSock) remains a top professional animation engine thanks to its performance, timeline control, and advanced plugins like ScrollTrigger and SplitText. Webflow acquired the GSAP business in Fall 2024 and on Apr 30, 2025 announced that GSAP is now 100% free to all users, along with improvements such as native GSAP integration for the Webflow designer, plugin hosting, and a SplitText rewrite that reduced file size by about 50%.
Lottie continues to be widely used for lightweight vector animations and expressive art. However, the @lottiefiles/lottie‑player npm package suffered a supply‑chain compromise in Oct, Nov 2024 when malicious versions were published; reports estimated roughly 94k, 100k weekly npm downloads at the time. That incident highlighted the risk of treating players and animation assets as low‑risk dependencies.
Design systems, motion tokens, and timing conventions
Motion is being adopted into design systems as discrete tokens: duration, easing curves, motion types, and choreographies. Communities and vendors publish token sets and patterns, Material Motion is a clear example, helping designers and engineers apply consistent motion across components and products.
Practical timing guidance is now common in system docs: micro‑interactions are often about 100, 200 ms, container and modal appearances around 180, 300 ms, and page transitions around 200, 400 ms. Teams also standardize easing: use natural or spring‑based easing for physics‑based motion and consistent cubic easing where appropriate to maintain rhythm across UI layers.
Tokens and patterns make it easier to scale motion: when component libraries, CSS variables, or token files define motion primitives, implementing and auditing transitions across platforms becomes repeatable and measurable.
Accessibility and performance best practices
Respecting user preferences and maintaining performance are non‑negotiable. The prefer‑reduced‑motion media query is the standard way to honor OS‑level motion preferences. WCAG requires pause/stop/hide controls for non‑essential moving content (SC 2.2.2), and designers must avoid excessive or flashing animations that can trigger seizures or motion sickness.
From a performance perspective, prefer animating transform and opacity properties because they are GPU‑accelerated and avoid layout thrashing. Use the Web Animations API or optimized libraries such as GSAP or Motion to benefit from efficient scheduling and compositor‑friendly updates; these tools help prevent costly reflows when animating size or position unintentionally.
Keep motion purposeful and measured. Overuse of transitions, inconsistent timings, or heavy sequential animations can harm perceived performance. Measure real‑world impact with performance tools and prioritize simple, meaningful motion over complexity for its own sake.
Security, supply chain, and operational hygiene
Animation libraries and players are attack surfaces. The Lottie supply‑chain compromise in late 2024 and other incidents through 2025 underscore the need for provenance, pinning dependency versions, and hardening CI/package flows. Treat animation runtimes and tooling like any other critical dependency.
Recommended practices include pinning exact package versions in lockfiles, using provenance metadata, scanning dependencies for known vulnerabilities, and adding package signing where supported. In CI, limit write access to registries, audit third‑party plugins, and stage asset builds behind review processes.
When shipping motion assets, consider bundling vetted players as part of your app build rather than dynamically pulling runners at runtime. That reduces exposure to malicious or mistagged releases and gives teams greater control over the animation surface in production.
Emerging trends and where teams should focus
The biggest trend is tighter integration of native browser features with framework ecosystems. Motion’s move to vanilla APIs and feature integrations (including View Transitions) and framework wrappers like experimental React Router helpers point to fewer needs for heavy third‑party solutions in many cases. This reduces bundle sizes and lets browsers handle the hard work.
Platform tooling is also bridging visual design and production motion. Webflow’s native GSAP integration, plugin hosting, and SplitText optimizations show how visual authoring can expose professional animation features without requiring hand‑tuned JavaScript for every interaction.
Teams should focus on three things: adopt native APIs where practical, centralize motion in design systems as tokens and patterns, and maintain robust dependency hygiene. That combination delivers performant, accessible, and secure motion systems that scale.
Motion systems for web interfaces are now the intersection of design, engineering, accessibility, and security. By combining native browser capabilities like View Transitions and WAAPI with well‑chosen libraries (Motion, GSAP) and tokenized system patterns, teams can deliver smooth, meaningful motion at scale.
Prioritize accessibility, prefer compositor‑friendly animations, and treat animation dependencies with the same operational care as other critical packages. The ecosystem changes of 2024, 2025 make it easier than ever to ship polished transitions without sacrificing performance or safety.