How Much Website Animation Is Too Much?
By Don Gerrity, Canada Web Pro Small Business Website Solutions

The answer I believe is to focus on what your website visitors, who are potential new clients and existing clients will want. How much website animation is too much is a very good question. Having no animations is a good thing but then again, having some animation on your website can be effective visually.  Too much website animation can weigh down the speed of a web page too which can affect search engine rankings. Having some animation like light text animation can be a very nice touch on a website. Just that any website page animations should be light weighted and fit the need for visual effect while not irritating visitors who want to read your website content.

For example, if you want  your text and graphic to fade in from the left or right when a visitor scrolls down, it can be an interesting way to show your content. That said, you do not want the first paragraphs doing this based on scrolling, otherwise the visitor is presented with a blank white screen and may not scroll down to make the text and graphic content appear.  The search engines will also frown on that.

For this reason, the very first content of images and text should either not be animated or it should automate on page load and load quickly. Then the content following may be able to animate based on scrolling.

That said, the goal is to not make reading your content irritating to the visitor or they may just leave your website and you have lost a potential customer.

My advice is to go static with the content and maybe have a fixed background image so when you scroll down, the background remains constant but gives the visitor something interesting and non invading when they read your content and view your web page images.

That stated, there are times when animating makes sense, but it should be used sparingly in my professional opinion.