The quality of Android apps has really increased in the past years. I’ve not been writing many rambling about bad design for a long time. App developers and designers (for the most part) understand Android and value the platform specific design and development needs. However, there is still one are which seems to be spawning apps that are really not good. Companion apps. Companion app disasters range from things like tooth brush companions to smart home apps. The companion app often is the very first contact point to the potential new customer. Do you think this will encourage the customer to ..read more

UI design patterns evolve. Some come into fashion and some go out of fashion. A pattern, once common, over used, and pervasive has been slowly been turned into background and removed. I’m talking, of course, about the Navigation Drawer. I recently had a discussion with a customer about the Navigation Drawer and its role in the current Android ecosystem. I put forth a claim that it is being phased out where possible.. including most Google’s apps. The Navigation Drawer pattern, or hamburger menu, has been receiving fair amount of criticism for quite a long time. Main reasons for the criti ..read more

Last year, Pierluigi Rufo (@pierluigirufo) and I were touring couple of conferences talking about Dev-Designer cooperation and how we tackle it. This is an issue very close to my heart. When the interdisciplinary cooperation works the results are amazing and work pleasant. (photo by Droidcon UK) There are couple of recordings online. I recommend you check out the Droidcon UK recording. This was our second round of the talk and we improved it a bit. Free registration required though to watch the video: How To Bring A Product To Reality In A Few Days: Design-Dev Cooperation And Fast An ..read more

I’ve been writing about Android UI Patterns now for nearly 10 years. In the Android ecosystem existing patterns evolve and new patterns emerge from the work designers and developers do on the platform. Established pattern evolution is one of the most fascinating things to follow for couple of reasons: It points out that design patterns are not design rules. Patterns are solutions to problems. Solutions are not absolute. You are free to think what you can do with an established pattern to better solve your specific issue. You don’t need to stop where the Material Design Guidelines end. H ..read more

In this article we explain how and why we did our Social Steps app custom toolbar from implementation point of view. Design Adding delightful details to your user interface is a great way to push your app above competition (assuming, of course, that all the important functionality exists and is well designed). Toolbar is a playground on Android. We decided to fully utilise it in playful but meaningful animations and state changes. The design for this feature, like for the rest of the Social Steps app, was done by Pierluigi Rufo. Pier has promissed to write about the design side in mu ..read more

Android bottom tabs, I mean Bottom Navigation, is here to stay. I have to admit that I wasn’t overly happy when this was added to the Material Guidelines. But hey, times change. In the end this addition makes sense and for me, as a business owner, this makes even financial sense. By utilising bottom navigation we can make Android apps take one steps closer towards iOS app design. It’s one step less we need to take into account when designing apps targeting multiple platforms. Note however, that I’m still not advocating 1-to-1 iOS-Android design. The platforms are different and need different ..read more

The head of Android design in Google, Matias Duarte, posted a great post to G+ about the role of consistency and Android design guidelines. The post is a good read and relates directly to the discussion about the Yahoo! Weather app. “Consistency and conventions are there to help your users. They help users get things done and not worry about how to get things done. Design guidelines are there to help you understand the consistency and conventions, especially if you’re not from around here.” -Matias Duarte Originally published at www.androiduipatterns.com on August 17, 2013. Mati ..read more

Yesterday, I wrote an article pointing out issues in the new Yahoo! Weather app. To my surprise the post has turned out to be quite a controversial one. Here are some reactions to it (I won’t even touch reddit comments ;) Now, before anyone tweets / messages these people, don’t. They have a point (although I’m not sure if being called “pathetic” is fully justified). I appreciate (most) of these comments and I thought I’d address some of them and explain my “nitpicking” in the previous article. While getting posted (and voted up) in /r/android usually means a nice incoming traffic to ..read more

In yesterday’s Android Design in Action video podcast Nick Butcher and Roman Nurik talked about design consistency on Android. This is a topic that keeps popping up in many design discussions and seems to be often misunderstood. What does it mean to follow the Holo guidelines when building an app? Does it mean that every app must look the same? What if you are publishing your app on multiple platforms? How do you make sure that your brand is consistent throughout the different app versions but still make your app feel like an Android app? Nick and Roman explain how to approach different parts ..read more

Tasks app is something I’ve been using as an example of great and simple Android app in many occasions. It’s one of the apps that took the new Android design and implemented it in it very basic and in the simplest form possible. I’ve used it as an example what to do when you don’t have access to a lot of design resources. Now, the same team has released their next app. And it is beautiful! Before reading further get the app from Google Play for free. There’s so many things in the app that can’t be shown in screenshots. Many seemed to think that following design guidelines somehow limits creat ..read more