Ian G. Clifton Clifton - Android User Interface Design: Implementing Material Design for Developers (Usability) (Addison-Wesley Usability and HCI Series)

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Implementing Material Design for Developers

Second Edition

Ian G. Clifton

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2015950113

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ISBN-13: 978-0-134-19140-9
ISBN-10: 0-134-19140-4

Text printed in the United States on recycled paper at RR Donnelley in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

First printing: November 2015

Editor-in-Chief
Mark Taub

Executive Editor
Laura Lewin

Development Editor
Songlin Qiu

Managing Editor
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Technical Reviewers
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Dedicated to those who care about user experience

Android has evolved at an incredible speed, and keeping up with the changes is a difficult job for any developer. While working to keep up with the latest features and API changes, it can be easy to neglect the design changes Android is undergoing. When Google announced the Material Design guidelines, even designers who had long dismissed Androids visuals started paying attention.

Its more important than ever for Android developers to understand the core aspects of design and the Material Design guidelines go some of the way toward making that possible; however, without years of background in design, it can be difficult to make sense of everything. This book will guide you through the real-world process of design starting from an abstract idea and sketches on paper and working all the way through animations, RenderScript, and custom views. The idea is to touch on each of the core concepts and cover enough so that you can have productive conversations with designers or even create everything yourself.

Design has many purposes, but two of the most important are usability and visual appeal. You want brand-new users to be able to jump into your app and get started without any effort because mobile users are more impatient than users of nearly any other platform. Users need to know exactly what they can interact with, and they need to be able to do so in a hurry while distracted. That also means you have to be mindful of what platform conventions are in order to take advantage of learned behavior.

If you have picked up this book, I probably do not need to go on and on about how important design is. You get it. You want to make the commitment of making beautiful apps that are a pleasure to use.

This book will serve as a tutorial for the entire design and implementation process as well as a handy reference that you can keep using again and again. You will understand how to talk with designers and developers alike to make the best applications possible. You will be able to make apps that are visually appealing while still easy to change when those last-minute design requests inevitably come in.

Ultimately, designers and developers both want their apps to be amazing, and I am excited to teach you how to make that happen.

Ian G. Clifton

You would think that the second edition of a book would be easier than the first, but when you find yourself rewriting 90 percent of it because both the technology and design trends are changing so rapidly, it helps to have assistance. Executive Editor, Laura Lewin, once again helped keep me on track even as I restructured the book and dove in depth in places I didnt originally expect. Olivia Basegio, the Editorial Assistant, kept track of all the moving pieces, including getting the Rough Cuts online so that interested readers could get a glimpse into the book as it evolved. Songlin Qiu was the Development Editor again and took on the task of making sense of my late-night draft chapters. I am also extremely appreciative of the work done by the technical reviewers, Adam Porter, Cameron Banga, and Joshua Jamison, whose feedback was instrumental in the quality of this book.