2. What are we talking about
• Coherence across OS
• Material design
• Soft keys navigation
• Backend improvements
• Notifications and ‘heads up’
• Lock screen
• Recent apps screen
• Android for work
• Security improvements
3. “We wanted one consistent vision for
mobile, desktop, and beyond,
something clear and simple that
people would intuitively understand”
Matias Duarte
VP Design @ Google
35. What does it mean for us?
• Opportunity to…
• Make a graphic/visual facelift
• Use newer patterns and layouts
• Add meaningful and delightful animations
• Have richer notifications
36. But also…
• Android for Work influences on SMB
• Kill Switch vs. Anti-Theft
• Anti-malware measures?
• More fragmentation in devices and OS
• Unified apps across platforms
• Faster performance
• Integration to wearable devices and IoT
One OS for tablets, phones, desktop and TV
Goals:
Create a visual language that synthesizes classic principles of good design with the innovation and possibility of technology and science.
Develop a single underlying system that allows for a unified experience across platforms and device sizes. Mobile precepts are fundamental, but touch, voice, mouse, and keyboard are all first-class input methods.
Principles:
Material is the metaphor: We know how materials work and feel, therefore we know how to use this.
Use of print-based design: The foundational elements of print-based design—typography, grids, space, scale, color, and use of imagery—guide visual treatments. These elements do far more than please the eye; they create hierarchy, meaning, and focus.
Motion provides meaning: Motion is meaningful and appropriate, serving to focus attention and maintain continuity.
There’s a hierarchy in the UI, making the most important things front and centre.
Geometric feel to the UI, refreshed look and animations.
“The experience of using L is akin to touching objects in real life, and how they interact with your touch.”
The material design was inspired by the idea of a screen that had tactile features -- the kind of changing texture real-world objects have, as opposed to today's flat glassy screens.
With the material design theme, developers can specify the "elevation" of an item -- how high it appears to be on the screen.
The material design language aims to unify software with the fundamental physics of how things work.
Material is the metaphor. Metaphors are like short stories, they communicate quickly and more deeply then just words. Metaphor is a back-story for the design -it unifies things for the audience and for developers.
Dimensionality afford interaction. The metaphor design language is a form of paper indistinguishable from magic. This is the metaphor carried through the interface. Surfaces are tangible, they can accelerate understanding of a UI. They are often easier and more understandable then language.
Surfaces are intuitive: they organize space and rationalize interactions. Familiar tactile attributes help people understand affordances.
Content is bold, graphic, and intentional. Embrace classic design principles to make content as clear as possible. Google's Material UI has new font families, and color palettes.
Color, surface, and icons define icons. Primary actions need to emphasize the core functionality in apps.
Users initiate change. Provide immediate feedback with appropriate physics. Use motion that cascades from touch.
Animation is choreographed on a shared stage. We don't move, the material does to move things closer to us.
Motion provides meaning. The way things move provide queues about how things work and their properties. Transitions allow people to keep their bearings across transitions.
One adaptive design. Every device is a window into the same content. Adaptive design keeps things integrated through type, color, and iconography. But each view is custom tailored to the size and interaction appropriate for each device.
More space between text
More depth with shadows
Brigther and bold colors
Roboto font adopted to all platforms
Larger Screen ≠ Larger cognitive capacity.
Line lengths should be digestible.
Pull the furniture off the walls: allow whitespace, and don't restrict yourself to anchored toolbars.
Use strategies at multiple levels of hierarchy, like at screen level and card level.
Flat design
Animations and shadows that provide meaning, taking user actions and connecting to the events that follow. To show what is possible in each place.
Multitasking (recent apps screen)
Engagement (notifications)
Motion as an affordance, to help us understand how objects can be manipulated.
Perceiving an object's tangible form helps us understand how to manipulate it.
Observing an object's motion tells us whether it is light or heavy, flexible or rigid, small or large.
Motion in the world of material design is not only beautiful, it builds meaning about the spatial relationships, functionality, and intention of the system.
Responsive interaction builds trust with the user and engages them.
When a user interacts with an app and beautiful yet perfectly logical things happen, the user feels satisfied—even delighted.
It is thoughtful and purposeful, not random, and can be gently whimsical but never distracting.
It encourages deeper exploration of an app
Carefully choreographed motion design can effectively guide the user’s attention and focus through multiple steps of a process or procedure;
avoid confusion when layouts change or elements are rearranged; and improve the overall beauty of the experience.
Motion design should not only be beautiful, but serve a functional purpose.
Thoughtful timing of actions is important to create meaning.
Craftmanship – Attention to details. Bring delight and clarity and improve the relationship between elements.
Carefully choreographed motion design can effectively guide the user’s attention and focus through multiple steps of a process or procedure;
avoid confusion when layouts change or elements are rearranged; and improve the overall beauty of the experience.
Motion design should not only be beautiful, but serve a functional purpose.
The most basic use of animation is in transitions, but an app can truly delight a user when animation is used in ways beyond the obvious.
That means everyday UI elements take on a three-dimensional quality, being rendered in the correct order with realtime shadows.
Also central to this more physically intuitive approach is animation. Buttons can ripple as they're pressed.
Checkboxes can show a little splash of activity as they're tapped.
And developers can specify a wide range of detailed animation behavior to control how elements bounce around, slide, expand, contract, appear, and disappear.
More flat icons
In material design, imagery—whether illustration or photography—is constructed but never contrived, magical but never overproduced.
The style is optimistic, delightful and honest. Materiality, texture, depth, unexpected use of color, and appreciation of context are emphasized.
The principles of imagery support the goal of purposeful, thoughtful, beautiful UIs.
choose images that express personal relevance, information and delight.
Stay away from stock photos
Have a point of focus
Illustration and pics can live together
Grid for elements 8dp
Grid for text 4dp
Roboto adapted font
App bar gets more styles
Change on the top bar, with primary color.
Floating action button, a circular button made of paper that lifts and emits ink reactions on press.
Raised button, a typically rectangular button made of paper that lifts and emits ink reactions on press.
Flat button, a button made of ink that emits ink reactions on press but does not lift.
Floating button – not more than one on page, not needed everytime.
Button can mutate into other buttons or menues that are directly related.
Can expand to a menu similar to Path or Tumblr
Change to flat buttons, using a divider also a dialog can be scrollable
Each of these cards contains a unique data set: a checklist with an action, a note with an action, a note with a photo.
1. Cards have rounded corners.
2. Cards can have multiple actions.
3. Cards can be dismissable and rearranged.
Use a card layout when displaying content that:
As a collection, is comprised of multiple heterogeneous data types (for example, the card collection consists of photos, movies, text, images)
Does not require direct comparison (a user is not directly comparing images or text strings)
Includes supporting content of highly variable length, such as comments
Consists of rich content or interaction, such as +1 buttons, sliders, or comments
Would otherwise be in a list but needs to display more than three lines of text
Would otherwise be in a grid list but needs to display more text to supplement the image
Google is making more improvements to how Android and apps drain your battery.
Specifically, developers get more tools to control how their apps affect the battery, including scheduling jobs, such as fetching new data, only when your phone is charging.
Google is making the ART runtime the default instead of the old Dalvik engine that Android has used since day one.
In addition, Google has added support for 64-bit architectures.
This should help improve performance on your devices, though it may break compatibility with some apps.
To improve GPU performance, L offers the Android Extension Pack, which features tessellation, geometry shaders, compute shaders, and advanced adaptive scalable texture compression.
There's also a new Battery Saver mode for users that clocks down the CPU and turns off background data. You can turn it on manually or program it to turn on automatically when your battery drops too low.
Project Volta is an umbrella name for several improvements in Android L, including optimizations of subsystems, better display of battery usage, a new job scheduler and of course a new Power Saver mode.
The key is in the name. Svelte is Google's attempt to cut the fat from Android allowing it to run faster and more smoothly on lower range handsets.
The new battery historian feature allows developers to measure the impact of specific activities on a device's battery life. The new job scheduler feature allows devs to optimize power consumption in apps — for example, by queueing "non-urgent" network activity so as to wake the device less often. It can also be used to schedule battery-intensive tasks like downloading updates for when a phone is on its charger.
In the next version of Android — now known as just Android L — notifications are getting a big overhaul, taking over your lockscreen and becoming smarter about what you're doing on your phone at any given time.
When the phone is locked but turned on, your lockscreen now becomes the notification pane, giving you a list of useful information on what's pressing on your phone right now.
Translucent background, can see the user on the top right
Android L will analyse your behavior and habits to only present the most useful and relevant notifications first.
You can either expand swipe upwards to unlock the screen, expand a particular notification or simply swipe it way sidewards.
This means you can see a message but there is no need to unlock your device to view it.
You can also add some privacy and security settings, to safely access the information, and also have the option of not seeing the notifications on the lock screen. On the bottom are call, lock and camera icons for quick access.
You can swipe down to expand the notification panel to get more information. You can also swipe up to unlock the device.
There's also a new type of notification called a "heads up notification" — that can pop in from the top of the screen over your current app without disturbing completely what you're doing.
The example given in the demo today was a call coming in while you're playing a game — you have the option to accept or reject the call while the game is still full screen, or you can simply swipe the notification away to dismiss it altogether without taking action.
Heads-up notifications can pop over a portion of the screen to let you know what's going on without interrupting the app you're currently using.
Personal unlocking enables your phone to determine if it is in a trusted environment.
It can detect whether the person swiping the lock screen is the owner of the device, for instance.
The feature uses data like location, nearby Bluetooth devices, or unique voice prints to authenticate and then unlock your device.
If the device running Android L cannot successfully authenticate you, it will present a PIN lock.
You can still use a PIN, password, or pattern lock when you're out and about, but you can now easily unlock your device without entering your PIN or password when it's close to your personal Bluetooth device, such as a smartwatch.
That means if you have the Moto 360 or LG G Watch on your wrist, and pick up your Android phone, the phone knows that the watch belongs to you and automatically unlocks itself. You just need to swipe on the screen to unlock the screen.
You can also set your phone to unlock when you're in a specific location, such as your house or office. Lastly, it can unlock using your unique voice print -- meaning you can talk to your phone and recognizes your voice to unlock it.
Location: For example, if you've designated a secure location using GPS, like your home and office, then you won't be bothered with a lock screen that begs you to enter a PIN, passcode, or pattern to unlock. If you're outside of the geofence, then a lock screen will ask you for your passcode as a secure measure. This makes it more manageable for consumers who want a secure phone, but don't want to be annoyed by security when it's not needed, especially if the phone is being unlocked to be used at home.
Bluetooth: Another way to manage Personal Unlocking is to connect to trusted Bluetooth devices. If your phone is connected to your phone's Bluetooth, or your Bluetooth wearable--like your fitness band or your smartwatch, then you won't need to enter a passcode. Your Bluetooth connection serves as a key to unlock your phone, making it more convenient. If you walk out of Bluetooth range, then whoever picks up your phone will need to enter in a password to unlock the device.
Kill switch. Android L will be the first version of Android to support Factory Reset Protection -- a kill switch that, like Apple's Activation Lock, will prevent lost or stolen devices from being used. Microsoft will also be launching a similar capability next year.
At Google I/O today, Sundar Pichai specifically discussed security innovations happening on Android as it builds an open platform that innovates quickly.
Pichai used this as an example to jab at Apple’s iOS 8 for only now introducing alternative keyboard and widgets as Android has had the features for years.
Pichai said that “less than half a percent of users” ever experience any issue with malware on Android.
He also noted that 93% of Android users are on the latest version of Google Play Services which updates every six weeks.
Pichai also announced features coming to Android “L” including a kill switch and universal privacy controls.
Apps shown as cards
Translucent background
Tabs in chrome as different apps
Gives more capabilities to chrome webapps
Web tabs in Android are integrated alongside native apps. This gives Web pages an equal footing with apps.
Google is making Android more secure for enterprises by providing data separation and security through a new program announced at Google I/O 2014 called Android for Work.
With the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) movement, today many work phones contain personal content and personal phones are used for work purposes.
With Android for Work, Google is adding a layer of security to make phones more secure for sensitive environments.
With the Android L release, Google is introducing new APIs to unify work and personal so that corporate apps can live on personal devices and content can remain secure.
Businesses can now deploy apps to users in bulk. This will be natively supported in Android L, but Google promises that it will introduce an update later so that any device running Android Ice Cream Sandwich or later can benefit.
With Android for Work, Google is rolling in parts of Samsung's Knox security suite for the enterprise so there is one protocol across all of Android.
Device manufacturers like Sony, LG, Motorola, and HTC to name a few will all bring Android for Work to their phones.
Google says that Samsung has contributed some of its work with Knox to Android for Work.
What this means is that developers won't have to modify existing apps to make it enterprise-ready.
It will also provide a secure container so business-sensitive data doesn't leak into personal usage of the mobile device.
Additionally, Google is also allowing native Office editing inside its Google Docs suite.
And with Google Drive for Work, Google is now offering unlimited storage for businesses at just $10 per user per month.
Google is also making it easy for app developers to unify their apps across platforms, so they operate the same way on every device.
An interesting feature is that the UI now has configurable depth levels for UI components and a uniform ambient lighting to cast shadows and highlights – meaning Android apps will look consistent across the board. It’s going to be easier than ever for app developers to use Google’s templates and make consistent looking apps to represent their brands.
What else does Android L offer? The notifications screen is more interactive than ever, as users will be able to see, expand, and interact with notifications – including the ability to respond to messages.
Google is also making it easy for app developers to unify their apps across platforms, so they operate the same way on every device.
An interesting feature is that the UI now has configurable depth levels for UI components and a uniform ambient lighting to cast shadows and highlights – meaning Android apps will look consistent across the board. It’s going to be easier than ever for app developers to use Google’s templates and make consistent looking apps to represent their brands.
What else does Android L offer? The notifications screen is more interactive than ever, as users will be able to see, expand, and interact with notifications – including the ability to respond to messages.