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Android Design

developer.android.com

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101–110 of 143 posts

Re: Android Design

#101

Post by thetrendycyborg »

jc4p wrote: post #22
emehrkay wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hilarious because i've been flip flopping on how they worked. The arrows seem to be a paradigm from mouse-based computing, can you scroll these lists like on ios?

If you scroll them they actually remove the arrows and make a lot more sense. Before you drag: http://i.imgur.com/4MUXO.png After you press to drag: http://i.imgur.com/BqXMY.png To be fair, it's a huge improvement over: http://i.imgur.com/2exF7.png

you know you can just press the number and use the keyboard, right?

Re: Android Design

#102

Post by nextparadigms »

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 agree. Please get rid of the way the back button currently works, Google. It should only go back within the app, and that's it. Just like your browser back button on your PC, doesn't affect any other app in the system.

And while you're at it, pretty consider getting rid of all the buttons altogether, and just use screen gestures, kind of like in N9's Meego. I keep getting this feeling that being there all the time, they are just wasting precious space.

Re: Android Design

#103

Post by nextparadigms »

romey wrote: post #48
rryan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was a huge frustration for me on 2.x. I'm glad they're suggesting that people insert fake activities to fix it. Here's an example -- from the homescreen, click a Music widget. The Music app opens and shows the song I was listening to. I want to go back to the playlist I was playing from so I hit back. Instead, I'm dumped back to my home screen. you have to hit the Google Music icon in the top-left to go back wit…

I disagree. I think the confusion is caused by users not intuitively understanding the context of the android "back". In a web browser, if you click a link to a sub-page on a different domain, you don't expect the back button to take you to the home page of that domain, you expect to go to the previous site you were browsing. Do any android devices have something akin to the right click on the back button in web brow…

> I disagree. I think the confusion is caused by users not intuitively understanding the context of the android "back"

That's exactly the problem. The user should intuitively understand an action. Since they don't, that means it's Google's fault for implementing it poorly.

Re: Android Design

#104

Post by nextparadigms »

nightpool wrote: post #39
rryan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was a huge frustration for me on 2.x. I'm glad they're suggesting that people insert fake activities to fix it. Here's an example -- from the homescreen, click a Music widget. The Music app opens and shows the song I was listening to. I want to go back to the playlist I was playing from so I hit back. Instead, I'm dumped back to my home screen. you have to hit the Google Music icon in the top-left to go back wit…

There has to be some kind of middle ground here, some kind of way to do it that gives you quick access for transitory things, like email and text messages, but also lets you get back up the stack. Maybe if artificialy adding things to the stack was disabled when you're coming from notifications, but not otherwise?

Why? The "multitasking button" should be enough for that. Press it, and you can switch to your app.

Re: Android Design

#105

Post by nextparadigms »

georgechen wrote: post #25

Am I missing something? I'd like to get my hands on the templates, mocks, wirefames, etc. Let me play with those (as a designer) and I'll be able to better follow the specs and guidelines. Note: Microsoft (for once) actually one-up Big G. here. They provide the PSD and fonts for Windows Phone 7 on MSDN + the UX Guidelines. Also, for Apple, 3rd party made all the PSD and templates for them...

I agree. I don't understand why they aren't linking to those resources as well, or maybe I missed them.

Re: Android Design

#107

Post by thetrendycyborg »

kizza wrote: post #98

Interesting how they make sure to say that you shouldn't use bottom tabs like in iOS. For my project I decided to do exactly that instead of using an Android standard action bar, because: 1:The bottom bar fits 5 items. An action bar needs to have the app name as well, which means it can't have 5 items anymore. Having a "More" option is just dumb. 2:The iOS bottom bar has text underneath its icons and the action bar d…

you can break out tabs into a separate action bar or use scrollable tabs. You're using elements from another platform your users don't use. You're just going to confuse or annoy them.

Re: Android Design

#108

Post by kizza »

thetrendycyborg wrote: post #107
kizza wrote: post #98

Interesting how they make sure to say that you shouldn't use bottom tabs like in iOS. For my project I decided to do exactly that instead of using an Android standard action bar, because: 1:The bottom bar fits 5 items. An action bar needs to have the app name as well, which means it can't have 5 items anymore. Having a "More" option is just dumb. 2:The iOS bottom bar has text underneath its icons and the action bar d…

you can break out tabs into a separate action bar or use scrollable tabs. You're using elements from another platform your users don't use. You're just going to confuse or annoy them.

For sure, but like I said, I don't have days to spend making half-baked action bar code work.

Re: Android Design

#109

Post by [deleted] »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #67
russell_h wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the "Back" button has replaced onscreen upward navigation in Android apps. This means that the back button cannot function strictly as a means of returning to your previous activity if upward navigation is going to be possible. The options are for apps to build upward navigation into their UI (how its done on the web) or for apps to push their entire navigation tree onto the stack, regardless of h…

But they're not... The Google Music, Reader, Market and others that I can't think of use the top left icon and a left handed arrow to take you back in the apps activity and that works regardless of the actual Activity stack (And the back button works as a stack navigator). This inconsistency and change in Google apps' behaviors is frustrating and is the only thing that I think they failed at in their attempts to fix…

[deleted]

Re: Android Design

#110

Post by babebridou »

nl wrote: post #78
duckworth wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem for me is the uncertainty and inconsistency. Do you always remember the previous screen you were on in any app hours ago? What if you got to the song from some other screen? I would constantly have to "guess", what is this app going to do, take me back to where I previously was or to a higher level in the app. It needs to be consistant, back is back and navigating within the app needs to be obviou…

The back button in browsers is often used as analogy, but how many tabs/windows do you have open in your browser? What if pressing the back button in the browser switched you to a word processor because that is what you were looking at before.

That's what alt+tab and ctrl+tab are for. The confusion comes from the use of only one back button instead of one per hierarchy.

On android we have only one system-wide consistent timeline to work with, and that's the timeline of fired intents. It works across the whole system. Back works on that level by default and is defined by default as "go back in time".

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