Thursday, February 14, 2008

New Android UI


Recently released Android SDK M5 changes the UI almost completely, as well as many aspect of the API that brake application code.
This is understandable as the SDK is under development and these are pre-releases.
Personally, I think that the UI will be heavily changed in next installment of the SDK preview, so it's better if you don't run changing your Android Development Challenge application because perhaps there's another big change before the deadline.
I'm just speculating.

Look at this example. If the API Demos should also be considered as a kind of informal style guide the use of the screen real estate is alarming.
Showing only four options covering the entire screen seems too much.
From the usability point of view there's also some problems. Not showing the scrollbar, how do the users guess that there are some hidden options ?

3 comments:

Ed Burnette said...

The fading at the bottom is supposed to indicate it's scrollable. There were some new APIs added in M5 to adjust the amount of fading on all 4 sides.

I think fading was inspired by the iPhone (like a lot of things these days). It's different than what we're used to but maybe we could get used to it.

Big buttons are probably caused by being in finger input mode (as opposed to stylus mode). I'm not sure how to change that on the emulator.

Diego Torres Milano said...

Hi Ed,
Thanks for your comments.
You are completely right, this is inspired by the iPhone and perhaps we will get used to it.

Diego Torres Milano said...
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