Seriously, you should start your mobile-related startup with an Android app, but there are many challenges that you need to fight to be competitive. First things first, you need to create a magical user experience solving a real problem. We will discuss why starting from Android could be the right strategy and how to use a lean approach to design a better user experience.

1. The eternal question: Android or iOS first?
Android, but take care of UX and follow
design guidelines
Piervincenzo Madeo
07.02.2014 - Turin

2. Piervincenzo Madeo
Founder of Eyeonplay
http://eyeonplay.com
User Experience Specialist of Life Interaction
http://life-interaction.com
Google Developer Live Italia - Android UX
http://developersitalia.blogspot.it/
Startupper and Android enthusiast

3. First challenge in the mobile app market

4. A REAL TIME PLATFORM FOR FOOTBALL lovers

5. create game
track events
share match report

6. Let’s talk about mistakes!
iOS first
Not designed for users needs
Launching too late with too many features

7. Let’s talk about mistakes!
iOS first
Not designed for users needs
Launching too late with too many features

8. iOS first. Why?
Started in 2011… iPhone is so cool
Hard to find an Android developer
Fragmentation and UX/UI ‘anarchy’

9. Smartphone OS Market 2011Q3
Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AWorld-Wide-Smartphone-Market-Share.png
By Milominderbinder2

10. Android hits 81.0% smartphone share in Q3 2013
Source: http://thenextweb.com/

11. Awesome things happen
Android 4.0 and Holo Theme
“Before Android 4.0 the variance in system themes from device to device
could make it difficult to design an app with a single predictable look and feel.
We set out to improve this situation for the developer community in Ice Cream
Sandwich and beyond.”
Adam Powell, Android Framework engineer

12. Official Design Guidelines
http://developer.android.com/design/index.html

13. Beautiful applications and great UX

14. Awesome Android Developer Community
Official Resources and Doc
Community resources
Design
http://developer.android.com/design/index.html
GitHub
https://github.com/search?l=Java&o=desc&q=andro...
Develop
http://developer.android.com/develop/index.html
Q&A
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/android
API Guides
http://developer.android.com/guide/index.html
Newsletter
http://androidweekly.net/
Android Developer Videos
http://www.youtube.com/user/androiddevelopers
Inspiration
http://www.android-app-patterns.com/
Android Design in Action Series
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW…
…
Android Developers Blog
http://android-developers.blogspot.it

15. We’re changing and Android will help us

16. Our future plan with Android in mind
Consumer apps for football lovers
Solid backend framework
Business intelligence for game statistics

17. Android is for startups. No doubts!
Free and open source
Free resources that help you in creating great products
Thousands of new device activations
Immediate go to market

18. Dark side of the…
Monetisation strategy (in-app purchase)
Fragmentation
Competition

19. Take care of the User Experience

20. UX ≠ USABILITY

21. UX
User Experience is not about features.
The perfect UX meets the exact needs of the user

22. USABILITY
is a quality attribute that estimate how easy is
to use your user interface. It’s defined by: learnability,
efficiency, memorability and error repetitions

23. Mental Model
“Mental models are what people really have in their heads and what guides
their use of things”
Donald Norman, 1983

24. Mental model
What user thinks she knows about a UI impacts how she uses it
Additional experience with the system can change the users’ model
Mental models of your app is influenced by other apps

25. Courtesy of Nadav Savio | Gian Ant Design | CC | http://goo.gl/HX9EDa

26. Mobility constraints
Users have intermittent attention while using apps
It’s a multitasking scenario that means a lot of interruptions
Device constraints: battery, display and network

27. Your goals designing a new application
Make the UX of your app conform to users' mental models
Improve users' mental models
Offer relevant mobile-only functionalities
Design for user needs through highly specific tasks
Design apps that have a consistent and predictable behaviour

28. What a good UX can’t solve
Wrong product
Team structure and balance
Wrong strategy and inappropriate go to market

29. Android Patterns & Best Practices

30. Pay attention to your top level screen
Start screen requires always special attention
Put content and frequent actions forward

32. Top level switching with view controls
Make it easy to navigate and switch between top level view
Introduce the user to the major functional areas
Avoid duplication and mixed solutions

34. Action Bar
Display key actions in an accessible way
Actions should have clear and predictable behaviour (add item, search)
Expose brand identity

36. Swipe between Detail Views
Navigate between detail items in succession using the swipe gesture

38. The Contextual Action Bar (CAB)
Useful to select data items by touching them
Trigger action to selected items
Perform specific and predictable action

40. Notifications
Keep the user informed about events
Use it for smart alerts
Users hate unwanted and not informative alerts
Notifications are now really flexible. Use responsibly
Always! Allow users to disable notifications

42. Pull to refresh
Swipe down to update recent items in your ListView
Use the Action Bar to keep updated the user
Add a visible loader

44. Undo Bar
Show up just after a potential destructive action
Allow users to undo the most recent action
Show it in an easy-to-tap position

46. Please, forget pixels!

47. Use Density Independent Pixels
DIP or DP units keep things the same physical size across any screen size

48. Use Density Independent Pixels
1px is just 1dp at 160dpi
_____ px = [ ____ dip * ___dpi ] / 160dpi

49. 48dp for touch target
Touchable UI targets are generally laid out along 48dp units

50. 8dp for your grid
Spacing between each UI element should 8dp (multiple of 4)

51. Text and scale independent pixel (sp)
1 scale-independent pixel unit is equal to 1dp with a 100% globe text scale
User can select a system-wide scaling factor for text in Settings
Always use scale independent pixel unit for text

52. Hello, Roboto
Roboto Thin & Thin Oblique
Roboto Light & Light Oblique
Roboto Regular & Oblique
Roboto Medium & Medium Oblique
Roboto Bold & Bold Oblique
Roboto Black & Black Oblique
Roboto Condensed & Condensed Oblique
Roboto Condensed Bold & Condensed Bold Oblique

53. Support multiple screen
Explicitly declare in the manifest which screen sizes your application supports
Provide different layouts for different screen sizes
Provide different bitmap drawables for different screen densities
http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html

55. My typical workflow

56. 1. Sketches, wireframes and UX flow
Describe the intent of each single view
Visualise the entire use flow
Tell a use case using personas

58. 2. UI prototype
Create a more detailed UI prototype
Define the look and feel
Tell a use case using personas

60. 3. User tests
Test your assumptions with real people
You need no more than 5 tests
Create clever tasks for the user

62. SVG and JavaScript - Live demo

63. Keep in touch!
http://twitter.com/piervix
http://dribbble.com/piervix