A few days ago, we investigated the new navigation drawer design present in updates to Google Earth and Google Shopper. The hope at the time was that this new Up button design would be pushed out to other Android apps. We even heard from a few Googlers that this was happening.

Now, things are officially official, as the Android Design site has updated with Matias-approved guidelines for the navigation drawer.

Things work pretty much the way we went over when we were first introduced to this. The Up button changes from a carat to a new 3 line icon when it will open the drawer. The old design used a carat for Up and opening the navigation drawer, which was confusing. With this design, you always know what will happen before you hit the button. You should also be able to open the nav drawer from just about anywhere with a horizontal swipe.

Even if you already support a similar navigation drawer, update your drawer to this pattern to make sure that:

  • The action bar remains in place and adjusts its content.
  • Your navigation drawer overlays the content.
  • Any view represented in the drawer has a navigation drawer indicator in its action bar that allows the drawer to be opened by touching the app icon.
  • You take advantage of the new visual drawer transition.
  • Any view not represented in the drawer maintains the traditional Up indicator in its action bar.
  • You stay in sync with the general navigation patterns for Up and Back.

Google says that anyone with a similar design should update to this one, and that the action bar should stay put when the drawer is opened (glares at Google+).

Anyone interested in the full details should hit up the source link. Here's hoping we see this in a lot more apps soon.

Source: developer.android.com via Jens Nagel