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Android Design

developer.android.com

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Re: Android Design

#11

Post by Pewpewarrows »

jc4p wrote: post #7

As an Android developer for many years I was excited when I read the blog post about the site. When I went to the site, I was very disappointed. I've spent the better part of 10 minutes on the site so far and haven't seen anything other than marketing text and screenshots of what my phone looks like. How do I make these "beautiful designs" work across all Android phones? How do I use an Actionbar on a non 3.0+ device…

The link at the bottom to the core developer site shows you how to implement most, if not all, of what they discuss here. Though it would be nice if they had links interspersed throughout the design text to their tutorials and API guides about the UI features.

http://developer.android.com/index.html

Re: Android Design

#13

Post by estel »

Pewpewarrows wrote: post #9

This is a long overdue but very well put-together UI and Usability Guide for Android Developers. My only qualm from reading it thus far is the very last section under Navigation [1] regarding System-to-app navigation: "For the Back key, you should make navigation more predictably [sic] by inserting into the task's back stack the complete upward navigation path to the app's topmost screen." No. This piece of advice is…

I'm not sure where I stand on this; and it's possible the context should determine the behaviour. But equally, perhaps Google just want consistency?

Re: Android Design

#14

Post by jra101 »

Pewpewarrows wrote: post #9

This is a long overdue but very well put-together UI and Usability Guide for Android Developers. My only qualm from reading it thus far is the very last section under Navigation [1] regarding System-to-app navigation: "For the Back key, you should make navigation more predictably [sic] by inserting into the task's back stack the complete upward navigation path to the app's topmost screen." No. This piece of advice is…

The ideal behavior would be if the app is launched via another app it should not touch the back stack. If I launch the email app from the home screen or app folder, it should populate the back stack so that hitting back brings me from the email I had open to the inbox.

Re: Android Design

#16

Post by njs12345 »

This is great! If apps start following this it should significantly improve the Android user experience, as well as making it much easier to design good Android apps.

Re: Android Design

#17

Post by dminor »

Pewpewarrows wrote: post #9

This is a long overdue but very well put-together UI and Usability Guide for Android Developers. My only qualm from reading it thus far is the very last section under Navigation [1] regarding System-to-app navigation: "For the Back key, you should make navigation more predictably [sic] by inserting into the task's back stack the complete upward navigation path to the app's topmost screen." No. This piece of advice is…

I happen to like this functionality and don't think it's confusing at all. As long as pressing back eventually gets me back to where I was before it's just fine.

Re: Android Design

#18

Post by jc4p »

Pewpewarrows wrote: post #11
jc4p wrote: post #7

As an Android developer for many years I was excited when I read the blog post about the site. When I went to the site, I was very disappointed. I've spent the better part of 10 minutes on the site so far and haven't seen anything other than marketing text and screenshots of what my phone looks like. How do I make these "beautiful designs" work across all Android phones? How do I use an Actionbar on a non 3.0+ device…

The link at the bottom to the core developer site shows you how to implement most, if not all, of what they discuss here. Though it would be nice if they had links interspersed throughout the design text to their tutorials and API guides about the UI features. http://developer.android.com/index.html

That's definitely true, I don't know why they didn't put a "click here for more technical info!" next to each point.

The things that really bother me are:

1. If I implement one of the new themes they're discussing on the linked page, it only works in 3.9% of Android phones on the market, so if I want my apps to look like Google's on older phones I'm left to implement my own version of the themes. This is the same thing that happened when they announced "Homepages with square buttons for activities are the new way you should do everything!" and didn't release source code for how to do it for years afterwards with the Google I/O app, so every app that tried it did it a different way.

2. How am I supposed to use the action bar if Google's own applications can't decide on how to use it? Look at the "What's up with the bar" section of this blogpost: http://minming.posterous.com/google-currents-yet-another-con...

Re: Android Design

#19

Post by jc4p »

emehrkay wrote: post #15

I like the date picker http://developer.android.com/design/building-blocks/pickers....

Fun fact: the up and down arrows work exactly opposite how you expect them to.

Re: Android Design

#20

Post by [deleted] »

wattjustin wrote: post #8
kevinh wrote: post #4

The website felt odd to me. It's clearly aimed at developers, given the subject material, but it felt like it was written as an ad for prospective buyers. It listed a bunch of features and user interface methods that apps should have , but I couldn't find any resource for actually implementing what they suggested, apart from the link to the android developer page at the end.

I completely agree. The wording is so basic and kind of insulting as seen here for instance, "Text fields allow the user to type text into your app. They can be either single line or multi-line." Very elementary for either a developer or a designer to read.

[deleted]
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