Design - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

May

Finally, Google Has Come Up With A Predictable, Intuitive Sidebar Navigation Design - Now Please Add It To Everything [Update: Confirmed By Googlers!]

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Design, News

What exactly is the deal with slide-out sidebar navigation? Is it a standard Holo thing? Is it not? 3rd-party developers aren't really sure what to do with it, and even Google-made apps are all over the place. Some apps have sidebar navigation, some don't. The ones that do have it all function a little differently and none of the implementations were actually any good - until now.

Google Earth and Google Shopper were just updated with a new sidebar design, and, well, have you seen them? Google has fixed the biggest problem I have with all the previous designs: unpredictability.

In order to understand what's so great about the new design, we have to talk about what's so crappy about the old designs.

Apr

Design: How Should Google Advertise Glass? Here's One Idea

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Design, Editorials, Features, Glass, Google

A lot of people are excited for Google Glass right now. The first Explorer units began rolling into the happy embrace of those selected for the exclusive pilot program just last week, and we've already seen a ton of feedback. Combined with decent pre-release coverage, it's clear that Glass has the potential to shake things up once more people have it in their hands. Of course press coverage and user excitement only form part of the story. Another critical piece is advertisement and marketing.

Public image and privacy concerns aside, Glass will need to win the hearts of consumers, in a way Google has striven in the past to capture hearts through advertisements for the Nexus family.

Aug

Device Frame Generator Moves To Google's Android Developer Site, Becomes 'Device Art Generator'

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Design, News

Following last month's major update to the Android Asset Studio, the studio's Device Frame Generator has been given a new home under the "Distribute" tab at developer.android.com. For those not familiar, the Device Frame Generator is a tool that allows developers (or anyone, really) to wrap their screenshots in high-quality images of real devices, creating a stunning context for your app (or mockup).

Along with its new location, the generator has a new name: Device Art Generator. Users of the old generator will be happy to know that it has maintained its original functionality (like options for adding screen glare or shadow to your generated image), and works just as well (if not better) than before.

Jul

The Nexus 7's Software Buttons: Designed For Gaming

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Design, Jelly Bean 4.1, Nexus 7

"The playground is open."

That's the declaration attached to every piece of Nexus 7 advertising on the internet. The point Google's trying to get across is that the Nexus 7 is, first and foremost, a media device. Reading, watching, listening, and gaming - those are the use cases Google had in mind when they designed the N7.

The result is that the Nexus 7 is not just a new device, it's a new type of device, at least as far as the Android UI is concerned. When Google set out to design a 7 inch tablet from the ground up, they completely blew up the standard Android tablet conventions.

Jul

Fluid UI Makes Creating (And Testing) Mobile Design Mockups Faster, Easier, And More Productive

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Design, Development, News

Aiming to "unlock the world's creativity," the team at Fluid Software recently completed a project that began in January 2011 with the release of Fluid UI 1.0. The tool, which is powered by HTML 5 and based online, allows users to quickly and easily create mobile UI mockups for Android (both tablets and phones), as well as iOS using a simple interface that includes all of the basic building blocks (clip art icons, navigation elements, system bars, etc.) for beautiful, style-guide friendly interfaces.

Fluid UI's building interface can link, clone, and add pages and other elements, while providing an impressive array of transition options including various gestures and page-transition animations that are automatically baked in to your mockup.

Jul

Android Asset Studio Gets A Major Update – New UI, Device Frames, Clipart, And More

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Design, News

Bringing some exciting news to the Android design world today, Roman Nurik announced via Google+ that the acclaimed Android Asset Studio received a major update.

First off, the whole site has received a new layout/UI inspired by ICS and its holo themes. Next, the much-beloved Device Frame Generator (which has been making app screenshots gorgeous since last October) got a huge update. The generator now allows users to create beautifully framed images featuring Samsung's Galaxy SIII, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, and Google's own Nexus 7 tablet. Further, users can choose whether the resulting image will have a shadow and/or screen glare (or appear rotated) before saving the finished product.

Jun

Draw Something's "Fresh New Look" Could Use Some Help, But A Few Tweaks Could Make All The Difference

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Applications, Design, Editorials

With the introduction of Draw Something's "fresh new look!" update a couple of days ago came many design changes, not all of them entirely great. Just for fun, I decided to take a shot at making Draw Something's design slightly "fresher," or at least slightly more sensible. Just like my last design critique, I'll start by taking a look at what issues the current design has, and then make a few suggestions (with some quick mockups) as to what I think could be improved.