Look at the metaphoric title illustration of the article about UI animation. The smartphone plays the role of a curtain wall or screen, like the one used in a puppet theatre and designers reflect actors each of which shows a specific model of motion performance.

2. Illustration creates visual triggers that quickly transfer the necessary message

The vast majority of people perceive images faster than words. That’s neither good nor bad, it’s just a fact that designers can use to increase the visual performance of web or mobile layouts. People, in general, have incredibly broad abilities to perceive visual marks, recognize and proceed data even transformed in images of a high level of abstraction.

Here’s a bunch of useful facts:

• as psychologists claim, people need about 1/10 of a second to get a general perception of a visual scene or element (that speed is indeed impossible for textual items)

• visuals are transmitted to the brain much faster and important pieces of information are often fixed by the brain as visual images even if they were obtained via text perception

• images are less vulnerable in combination with the background and surrounding elements while the text is highly dependent on the aspect of readability

• images have a tendency to stick better in long-term memory which means that dealing with the interface users will not need to process and remember more data than it’s really necessary, so interactions get faster

• visuals in the interface can make it more universal in cases when an app or a website is used by people from different countries

• pictures push the limits of perception for users who have natural problems with text recognition such as, for instance, the dyslexic or non-reading preschoolers.

All the above-mentioned builds a solid reason to create strong and fast visual associations with illustrations. Characters, colors, composition, recognizable details will quickly inform users and support the message given in the textual form.