Android Application Interface Design

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Compared with iOS, there are various inconsistencies in the Android system interface, and the application interface itself lacks unified specifications. Although the openness of Android has brought the greatest possibility for apps to play independently, it is not necessarily a bad thing if the system can provide standard examples, after all, many applications do not need an original interface. Since Android 4.0, the system interface has improved a lot in terms of consistency. How should I design the Android Application Interface? If you carefully observe the recent design of a series of Google applications, you can see some guiding points, which are also being used by third-party applications.

The Android app should not be a rebuild of the iOS app. What should it look like? The androiduipatterns website provides some normative suggestions for the Android application interface design, which is worthy of reference.

 

Main Interface

What should the main interface (start Interface) of the application look like? See the following canonicalized chart.

What application uses this starting interface? Let's look at these three examples: Aldiko, Evernote, and Google +.

Sub-interface

The following example shows how to design the sub-interface of the application.

The above line is the operation bar: The application icon (or the back key may be included) on the far left, and click back to the start interface. The middle part mainly takes into account the color of application coordination; the rightmost is the operations that can be performed in the current scenario.

See the following example.

 

List page

Applications may need to process a large amount of data, while lists are a way to normalize the data. The list interface should be clear enough to provide a good overview for users. At the same time, the Operation bar of the List interface should allow users to perform single or multiple operations on the list.

Two good examples are Aldiko and Google Mail. Note that the list selection box is usually on the left, but in Aldiko, the folder icon is very prominent on the left, so the Aldiko selection box is placed on the right to achieve a balance on the interface.

Load list

Applications may need to process a large amount of information, such as the Twitter timeline. For users, this means that the List length is almost endless. At present, many applications have adopted common processing methods. When sliding down to the lower boundary of the List buffered entries, more information is automatically loaded.

The following are two examples: Android Market and Twitter.

Long press

To operate a single item of information, one interactive mode is long press. This may not be the most obvious operation, but it saves screen space and conforms to the concept of "context menu.

The following three examples: Aldiko, Astro File Manager and Google +.

Multiple choice operation

To select multiple items in the list, you are advised to add a selection column on the Project side of the list, such:

After you select multiple projects, the Operation bar is displayed at the bottom of the screen.

Tag

The classification tag has been highlighted in the system since Android 4.0. Under the top operation bar, there is usually a tab bar, you can click or slide left and right, such

Android Market and Google + are two examples.

Although Google does not provide too many restrictions on the interface, as the Android platform develops, the application interface gradually forms a set of unified rules and interfaces. Does this mean that all applications must follow the rules? Not necessarily. For example, the Path interface does not necessarily conform to the standards of any platform. If you have a ground-breaking interface and can ensure ease of use, you may wish to make bold innovations. Otherwise, following the existing good specifications may reduce your detours.