Juhani Lehtimäki - Smashing Android Ui: Responsive User Interfaces And Design Patterns For Android Phones And Tablets

Smashing Android UI:

Responsive User Interfaces and Design Patterns for Android Phones and Tablets

Juhani Lehtimki

This edition first published 2013

2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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About the Author

Juhani Lehtimki is a developer with more than 10 years of experience in consulting and products in various business domains and technologies. Hes been working on projects varying from Eclipse plug-in development to backend XML transformation to frontend web development and user interface design.

Recently, Juhani has been concentrating on Android and especially Android user interface design and development. Usability and user interface design has been his passion since early university studies. His interest in user interface design and Android led to the start of a blog about Android user interface design patterns in 2010. He still actively writes about topical user interface issues at http://www.androiduipatterns.com/ as well as participates in the active discussions around Android in the Google+ social network.

Authors Acknowledgments

Writing this book was a lot of work and a lot of fun. It would not have been possible without the support of my girlfriend who patiently understood why I had to sit inside and type away instead of enjoying her company for the last few months. Thank you for your understanding!

I also want to extend my gratitude to my employer and colleagues at Snapp TV Ltd. for being flexible about work arrangements and letting me spend some of my working hours writing this book. A special thanks to Jasper Morgan for encouraging me to take the time I needed for the book, thus avoiding too much stress in the process.

Also, a big thank you to the awesome Android community that has formed in the Google+ social network. I enjoy reading your posts and comments. Topical matters are discussed in a very informative and friendly matter that encourages everyone to participate. A big thank you to Googles Android developer advocates, especially Nick Butcher, for the active participation in those discussions as well as the encouragement to write about Android.

Thank you to everyone who has read my blog posts and commented on them. It has encouraged me to keep writing and I have learned a lot. Thank you to fellow Android bloggers who have helped to accumulate the amount of information in the online Android community.

Building Android apps would be very difficult without the community of Android library contributors. Thank you to anyone who has built an Android library and distributed it free and Open Source for anyone to use. You all are doing amazing work and making everyones life easier!

I also want to thank Google for providing tools to build Android apps as well as giving us the Android operating system. Writing this book would not have been possible without the awesome Google Drive (docs) that allowed me to concentrate on the writing instead of figuring out the word processing software. Big thank you also to Herzoglich Bayerisches Brauhaus Tegernsee for giving me energy in the late nights of writing.

Last but not least a huge thank you to Wiley for letting me write my first book. Thank you to Kezia Endsley, Craig Smith, and Sara Shlaer for guiding me in the process and all the help youve given me. A massive thanks to Sebastian Kaspari for being the technical editor of this book and making sure that all the code and examples work and are understandable. Thank you to Kevin Cannon for helping me by providing a designers point of view for many things.

Introduction

Welcome to Smashing Android UI.

This book will help you take the next step toward improving your Android knowledge. This book is not meant to teach you Android development from the beginning to the end, but instead builds on your existing knowledge and helps you understand how to build a better user experience for your apps.

For developers who might not be familiar with user interface design, this book gives you an overview of the tools and techniques you can use to determine what your users want and how to evaluate your apps usability.

For designers, reading this book will give a good overview of Android user interface in general. Youll find a comprehensive list of available default components and come to understand how developers use them. This book helps you align your knowledge of the Android platform with your developers to make it easier to work with them to build scalable and responsive user interfaces.