Transform origin

Transform origin is the anchor a scale or rotation pivots around. Anchoring decides whether motion reads as physical: a dropdown should grow out of the button that opened it, a tooltip out of the word it explains, a popover out of the avatar that triggered it. Scaling from the centre of the viewport reads as a generic overlay, not as a relationship. Starting from scale(0) is the other common failure — an element appearing from nothing has no origin to read, so start near its resting size instead.