Change Details

**Background** As part of the 2026 Year in Review planning, we previously explored adopting Lottie animations to create a more immersive, polished experience while keeping implementation manageable. That investigation established an initial approach for integrating animation into the feature and identified Lottie as a promising solution. Since then, Rive has emerged as another option that offers capabilities beyond traditional timeline-based animations, including state machines, interactive animations, and a different runtime architecture. Before committing to Lottie for the 2026 experience, we should understand whether Rive provides meaningful benefits for Year in Review that justify any additional implementation complexity. This spike should evaluate whether Rive is a better long-term animation solution than Lottie for Year in Review on iOS and Android. **Questions to answer** What advantages does Rive provide over Lottie for the Year in Review use case? Are Rive's interactive capabilities relevant for our planned experiences (e.g. tap interactions, gesture-driven moments, dynamic transitions)? How does the runtime performance compare on iOS and Android? What is the impact on application size and runtime dependencies? How mature is Rive's support for both platforms compared with our existing Lottie approach? What is the expected engineering effort to integrate Rive? Are there maintenance considerations that would influence adoption? Would migrating from the previously explored Lottie approach introduce significant additional work **Deliverables** 1-- Comparison document outlining: - Lottie vs. Rive capabilities - Engineering complexity - Performance considerations - Maintenance and long-term support 2-- A small proof-of-concept animation implemented with Rive (if feasible). 3-- A recommendation on whether Year in Review should: - continue with Lottie, - adopt Rive, - or continue evaluating both for different animation needs. 4-- Follow-up implementation tasks, if warranted. **Acceptance Criteria** - Engineering understands the feasibility of integrating Rive into both iOS and Android applications. - Tradeoffs between Rive and the previously investigated Lottie solution are documented. - Any blockers are identified. - A clear recommendation is provided for the animation technology to use for the 2026 Year in Review experience.

**Background** As part of the 2026 Year in Review planning, we previously explored adopting Lottie animations to create a more immersive, polished experience while keeping implementation manageable. That investigation established an initial approach for integrating animation into the feature and identified Lottie as a promising solution. Since then, Rive (https://rive.app/) has emerged as another option that offers capabilities beyond traditional timeline-based animations, including state machines, interactive animations, and a different runtime architecture. Before committing to Lottie for the 2026 experience, we should understand whether Rive provides meaningful benefits for Year in Review that justify any additional implementation complexity. This spike should evaluate whether Rive is a better long-term animation solution than Lottie for Year in Review on iOS and Android. **Questions to answer** What advantages does Rive provide over Lottie for the Year in Review use case? Are Rive's interactive capabilities relevant for our planned experiences (e.g. tap interactions, gesture-driven moments, dynamic transitions)? How does the runtime performance compare on iOS and Android? What is the impact on application size and runtime dependencies? How mature is Rive's support for both platforms compared with our existing Lottie approach? What is the expected engineering effort to integrate Rive? Are there maintenance considerations that would influence adoption? Would migrating from the previously explored Lottie approach introduce significant additional work **Deliverables** 1-- Comparison document outlining: - Lottie vs. Rive capabilities - Engineering complexity - Performance considerations - Maintenance and long-term support 2-- A small proof-of-concept animation implemented with Rive (if feasible). 3-- A recommendation on whether Year in Review should: - continue with Lottie, - adopt Rive, - or continue evaluating both for different animation needs. 4-- Follow-up implementation tasks, if warranted. **Acceptance Criteria** - Engineering understands the feasibility of integrating Rive into both iOS and Android applications. - Tradeoffs between Rive and the previously investigated Lottie solution are documented. - Any blockers are identified. - A clear recommendation is provided for the animation technology to use for the 2026 Year in Review experience.

**Background** As part of the 2026 Year in Review planning, we previously explored adopting Lottie animations to create a more immersive, polished experience while keeping implementation manageable. That investigation established an initial approach for integrating animation into the feature and identified Lottie as a promising solution. Since then, Rive (https://rive.app/) has emerged as another option that offers capabilities beyond traditional timeline-based animations, including state machines, interactive animations, and a different runtime architecture. Before committing to Lottie for the 2026 experience, we should understand whether Rive provides meaningful benefits for Year in Review that justify any additional implementation complexity. This spike should evaluate whether Rive is a better long-term animation solution than Lottie for Year in Review on iOS and Android. **Questions to answer** What advantages does Rive provide over Lottie for the Year in Review use case? Are Rive's interactive capabilities relevant for our planned experiences (e.g. tap interactions, gesture-driven moments, dynamic transitions)? How does the runtime performance compare on iOS and Android? What is the impact on application size and runtime dependencies? How mature is Rive's support for both platforms compared with our existing Lottie approach? What is the expected engineering effort to integrate Rive? Are there maintenance considerations that would influence adoption? Would migrating from the previously explored Lottie approach introduce significant additional work **Deliverables** 1-- Comparison document outlining: - Lottie vs. Rive capabilities - Engineering complexity - Performance considerations - Maintenance and long-term support 2-- A small proof-of-concept animation implemented with Rive (if feasible). 3-- A recommendation on whether Year in Review should: - continue with Lottie, - adopt Rive, - or continue evaluating both for different animation needs. 4-- Follow-up implementation tasks, if warranted. **Acceptance Criteria** - Engineering understands the feasibility of integrating Rive into both iOS and Android applications. - Tradeoffs between Rive and the previously investigated Lottie solution are documented. - Any blockers are identified. - A clear recommendation is provided for the animation technology to use for the 2026 Year in Review experience.