Q&A
So is web animation something all developers
should know about, in your view?
I don’t think that every developer can know every
aspect of web development and animation is often
one area that’s considered more a UX engineer’s
job. But, in general, knowing and learning about
animation will help you create sites that are more
usable and engaging than a simple static site, even if
it’s only a simple CSS hover animation on an icon or a
menu item.
These simple, often unconsciously perceived
animations, make a big difference in terms of mental
load and help the user keep orientation in a website.How did you first get involved in giving talks and
workshops at web events?
I helped organise .concat(), which is a web
development and UX conference here in Salzburg. I
was one of the main organisers; my perspective really
changed going from being a visitor of a conference
to organising a conference. At the same time, I was
still a student and visited a lot of conferences through
diversity ticket programmes. This made a huge
difference and got me a lot more involved in the web
development community.How did things develop from there?
Once I felt I had something to say, I started a blog
(lisilinhart.info/writing/) and started writing articles
on topics that I was interested in. From there on, I
already knew a few people in the community and
started applying for CFPs (call for papers).What do you see as the benefits from speaking at
web events?
The benefits of speaking are that you need to keep
learning and really understand difficult concepts
in order to explain them to other people and, at the
same time, you get to meet many amazing developers
and learn new things you never heard about.In general, what’s exciting you most in the field of
web design right now?
There are always so many exciting new topics on the
web because it’s always evolving. In terms of
animation, Houdini is an interesting one. In terms of
front-end development, Micro Frontends (micro-
frontends.org/) and their application in bigger
ecosystems is something I want to explore further
because it makes an application less dependent on big
frameworks, which are always changing.LISI LINHART
Q&ACould you briefly introduce yourself to anyone who
doesn’t know you?
I’m a creative developer from Austria; I create a lot
of interactive, moving things on the web and love
to combine technology with creative ideas. I’m also
currently a lecturer at the University of Applied
Sciences in Salzburg, Austria, where I lecture in
the web development department. My lectures
involve front-end development, design and data
visualisation. I am slightly obsessed with animation
and interactions on the web.Why are you so passionate about web animation?
In general, our brains like to have concepts explained
in a simple, understandable way and one way to
do that is to use imagery and animations. On the
web, we essentially have documents that give us
information to read.
With web animation, we can explain and show
difficult concepts in a much simpler way by taking
advantage of motion. At the same time, web
animation allows us to add interaction and to make
elements move according to user input, which highly
increases engagement and makes it more likely that
the user will stay on the site.The Austrian developer and speaker discusses
her passion for web animation
INFOjob: Junior lecturer
in multimedia
technology,
Salzburg University
of Applied Sciences
w: lisilinhart.info
t: @lisi_linhart
Linhart will give a talk on Practical Animation at Pixel
Pioneers, a one-day conference held in Bristol on 7 June.
For more info, see pixelpioneers.co/events/bristol-2019.