A lot has changed since WinForms but one of the variables that hasn't changed much, is the programmer. WinForms programmers who were used to static environments are now asked to "upgrade" to WPF, which brings a whole new world of possibilities. One of these possibilities is animation. In an ideal world, a company that moves from WinForms to WPF should have an integrator and an artist. Obviously, not all of WPF programmers are that fortunate and some have to take on the three roles. Here's an example of what I consider a good use of animation.

If working with Catherine (our artist) has taught me anything in the past three year is that "less is more", which she often loves to remind me. This is especially true with animations and more so if you have little or no experience with it. Stick with the basics. Why do you want to animate X and Y? The answer can't always be "because it's cool” or “because I can". Animations should be used to guide the user’s eyes on the screen, to give them a visual queue that something changed. It's easy to go over the top and do too much. Here's an example of what I would not recommend :

Unfortunately, this is the type of things we see in WPF applications. Too much visual noise, which overwhelms the user. I would recommend a much smoother approach. For example:

In the end, if your application is built around a "light" animation philosophy, odds are that you'll get a much slicker application. Try not to vary the type of animation you are using either. Mixing ScaleTransforms with RotateTransform can make a user nauseous. If you don't feel you have the knowledge required to determine when you should use animation, refer to the pros like what you see in Zune, which uses very smooth animation like the one I demonstrated.

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