Flow isn’t about speed; it’s about continuity. Interfaces that feel “fast” often just avoid breaks in comprehension. When the brain never has to ask “where am I?” or “what just happened?”, momentum compounds.
Flow mechanics
- State continuity. Preserve scroll, selection, and input between transitions. Memory reads as care.
- Predictable pacing. Use consistent spacers and type scales so new screens “scan” like old ones.
- Gentle causality. When something changes, show where it came from and where it went.
Latency choreography
You can’t delete time, but you can design it. Treat latency like a passage between rooms — lit, labeled, and short.
- Cause + ETA: “Uploading 3 files — ~5s.”
- Partial progress: Reveal content as it arrives; don’t block on perfection.
- Give control: Background, cancel, and retry are a language of respect.
Motion as memory aid
Motion should answer three questions: What changed? Where is it? What now? Tie easing to semantics: enter = ease-out, exit = ease-in, state change = spring.
Typographic tempo
- Keep lines tight: 60–75ch for prose; 50–60ch for dense UI copy.
- Line-height scales: larger type = slightly tighter; smaller type = looser for legibility.
- Emphasis restraint: vary one parameter at a time — weight, size, or color — not all three.
Friction audit (15 minutes)
- Open your top three screens and mark every unexpected scroll stop.
- Normalize heading spacing and section rhythm.
- Replace two decorative effects with contrast or whitespace.
- Add visible focus states to every interactive element.
- Introduce a cause+ETA loader to the slowest path.
“Every pixel that gets out of the way helps someone stay in the moment.”
From flow to trust
When movement is coherent, users stop negotiating with the interface and start engaging with purpose. That ease is remembered as trust — the quiet metric that compounds.
Logically Incorporated — designing clarity for the modern web.