Are there any UI design guidelines for the upcoming Android tablets? Looks like the Archos 7 will be available sometime this month. My question is not about supporting the screen size but more about providing a more appealing UI interface for a bigger screen device.
Thanks
It is not really UI Design Guidelines, but you can create your custom layout extend ViewGroup and be able to react to extra big resolution of the screen by putting extra components on screen and alter the layout significantly, well beyond what's possible using the build-in multi resolution XML layout mechanism.
A great starting point would be the official Android Design Guidelines.
In particular, the sections on Multi-pane Layouts and Devices and Displays might be of interest to you.
When understanding Android app development, one of the most significant topics to comprehend is how to make delightful mobile interfaces and interactions. This indicates understanding the patterns within the Android universe, common style guidelines, patterns, etc.
The official Android docs have an outstanding set of design resources. This section will emphasize a few key design guidelines and link to the appropriate guides. You can also check out these Android design tips for a quick overview.
Screen Size and Orientation
System Bar
Back Button
Action Bar
Widgets
Notifications
Settings
UI Elements
Fonts
Split View and Multi-Pane UI
Embedded Multimedia
Clipboard
Design Patterns
Related
We have an App for both iOS and Android platforms. Currently our designers have designed similar User Interface for two of them, just have minor differences. Since those two shared lots of common features like buttons, text fields, etc, having similar interface works for both platforms. However, the most obviously differences between iOS and Android (from my point of view), are UINavigationBar in iOS and ActionBar in Android.
Now our interface for Action Bar and Navigation Bar looks like this:
This is followed UINavigation Design that have Title in centre. I'm just wondering should I keep the title centre in Android's Action Bar so two platforms will have similar interface or should I follow Android's design guide (Title next to left icon) for better Android User Experience?
Per Pure Android:
Most developers want to distribute their apps on multiple platforms. As you plan your app for Android, keep in mind that different platforms play by different rules and conventions. Design decisions that make perfect sense on one platform will look and feel misplaced in the context of a different platform. While a "design once, ship anywhere" approach might save you time up-front, you run the very real risk of creating inconsistent apps that alienate users.
This advice definitely applies to the app bar, which has very clear design guidelines as part of the Material Design guide, which is the driving force behind Android design at this time and is supported across all API 7+ devices via AppCompat.
See: https://developer.android.com/design/index.html.
This is somewhat opinion-based, but it is probably best to adhere to the Android styles where applicable, rather than shoot for consistency between you iOS and Android versions. If you want your users to have a comfortable, familiar experience, then keep in mind that they are probably most familiar with other apps on that specific device type.
An argument for consistency between Android and iOS would be (a) simpler to design for, (b) might be easier to test, (c) easier to support.
This all assumes you are building native apps. If you are making an HTML or hybrid app, a more device-neutral style might be acceptable.
I am about to start porting an iOS application to Android targeting ICS devices. The PM/designers had originally agreed that we will follow the Android design guidelines to provide users with a consistent experience. However, when I received the wireframes, I noticed that their "tab bar" is at the bottom and that several screens have "segmented controls" at the top.
When I explained that these patterns don't follow the guidelines, they came back with a response to the effect of "Instagram for Android does it and they've been featured and have millions of users."
So I took a look at the Instagram Android app. Here is what the offending screen looks like:
My question is, what would this type of screen look like if it followed the design guidelines. Obviously the tabs would be on top using the ActionBar APIs. However, at that point I think that the segmented controls would only confuse the user since they would appear as a secondary tab bar. I am not familiar with any Android design patterns that mimic the iOS segmented controls in situations like this. Would an ActionBar spinner containing the 2 items be appropriate here? If so, it would seem that we would not be able to keep the "NEWS" title.
Any help is appreciated.
PS. Taking a look at the offending screen with hierarchyviewer reveals that the Instagram tab implementation uses the deprecated TabHost/TabWidget and that the segmented controls are implemented via a (custom) ViewSwitcherButton class.
are there design conventions for layouts on larger layouts? I feel like this is a question few have asked.
A lot of android layouts don't look good on larger screens, or the user experience doesn't translate so seamlessly.
A critique of android apps is that they just stretch on large screens, but don't have any design considerations for them.
Is there a resource that details how a user might want to make their layout-large xml file, if their default layout xml file includes a listview, for instance. On the mobile experience, a listview with just text will be fine, where on the larger screen experience, the listview by itself doesn't look too good.
I would like to add extra layout files, but I don't have any reference on what they should look like, or even in the planning design phases of an app, I don't have any reference on how it ought to be designed so that other screen sizes can be incorporated.
Mainly looking for a resource that addresses these issues. Like maybe a blog post that goes into detail about this. Google's tablet design guidelines were a helpful start too.
Insight appreciated
Perhaps these resources will help you out. I would make the general statement that probably the most common technique for adapting layouts from handset to tablet is making tablet layouts multi-pane. You mentioned that you already perused through the Google design guide, but I figured I'd highlight the one page that talks specifically about this:
Android Design: Multi-Pane Layouts
The general concept is that information you would have presented on multiple screens on the handset (e.g. the list of items, followed by the view to display the selection) can be brought together on the same screen on a tablet (so the list now sits side-by-side with the view of the current selection). You mentioned already how the resource framework assists in selecting the proper layout; on the code side Fragments are intended to assist with modularizing the code that goes along with the view as well.
Another resource that may be of use is from Googler Kirill Grouchnikov. He has a series of blog posts dealing with Google Play as a case study and how conceptually the UI was broken up to work between the handset and tablet:
Responsive Mobile Design
Hope that Helps!
I want to design android game program!
i use android DroidDraw program design UI view(Only 2.7" size)
absolutelayout.linearlayiut.tablelayout have tried
However, the components designed address will change with different resolutions
how do design to achieve what I want?
I'm not sure what you're asking, but you may try and peruse Supporting Multiple Screens for a taste of "The Android Way".
I am trying to teach myself the basics of Android dev. At the moment I am experimenting with home screen widgets. I would like to create a simple widget that lists all my bookmarks. Somewhere in my googling I read that ListView is not usable in a widget. What's the best way to display a scrolling list in a widget? An example would be fantastic, but otherwise point me in the right general direction and I can research further.
Thanks in advance,
Dany.
ListViews are supported in Custom Launchers that support the scrollable-widgets extension or in the Launchers since Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). Take the Android Agenda Widget for example, this supports scrolling in Custom Launchers, or the GMail-widget on Honeycomb.
Scrolling widgets in Custom Launchers is described here:
http://www.geekrono.com/2010/08/android-scrollable-widgets.html
Scrolling widgets in Honeycomb and up is described here:
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/appwidgets/index.html#collections
You can finnd the sources for good working example except for Honeycomb at http://code.google.com/p/scrollablecontacts/
I've only seen a huge list widget on phones with HTC Sense - example. HTC Sense has a widget like that for Stocks, Twitter, etc. I don't think it's a good idea to develop huge widgets like that, because they take up too much space and some phones are limited to 3 screens (screens that you can put your app shortcuts, widgets and etc).
This is a good article on Widget UI Patterns:
Widget Design Guidelines
Seesmic for Android has a 'list' widget with latest tweets:Seesmic Blog
Widget Screen
There's also an article on UI Patterns, based on the new Twitter app, hope that helps you - Link and a video (Android UI design patterns).
Re: user controls (like in .NET), Android Views and in your case 'ListView' is what you might use for your app. You also mentioned .NET (Visual Studio), you might be interested in MOTODEV Studio. It's basically a better version of Eclipse (with Android SDK) that has common code snippets and other cool stuff.