Android L’s app design—early looks at YouTube, Gmail, Maps, and more

Gallery: We round up all the Material Design screenshots Google has been showing off.

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[TBoneT]

The YouTube app can only fit 3 videos on the screen at once? That's not very many and a lot of scrolling.

 

[ronamadeo]

TBoneT[/url]":31pfynfp]The YouTube app can only fit 3 videos on the screen at once? That's not very many and a lot of scrolling.

It's playing a video, the two at the bottom are recommended videos.

 

[UnnDunn]

It's nice that Google finally has a cohesive, unified design language.

I am not sure I like how low the information density is, nor do I like the pastelly color palette.

 

[loombot]

Not particularly pleasing to the eye... but as long as it's functional it should be fine. I do wish they'd design some original controls to set themselves apart from that other company that makes an OS and apps for phones...

 

[wb]

loombot[/url]":1jigdbh6]Not particularly pleasing to the eye... but as long as it's functional it should be fine. I do wish they'd design some original controls to set themselves apart from that other company that makes an OS and apps for phones...

You mean Microsoft? No, wait...I got it: Ubuntu! ;-)

 

[wh1terav3n]

Something just feels wrong about it to my eye. I think they may have gone too far toward "pretty" on the scale between usability and pretty. As others have argued about, there is a distinct lack of information density here. When playing an album, I HAVE to scroll to see the tracks? As others have said "it's just a scroll", but I have a feeling that on the 1000th time I have to do it, I'm going to be really annoyed.

Same for the tablet calendar with the useless header image pushing down the actual calendar. Why? It's pretty, but not very usable. I just haven't been able to like much about this redesign. It's cohesive, and it's actually a design language that exists, so that's an improvement. Maybe I'll like it when I am, inevitably, forced to use it.

 

[dashiel]

As an unabashed fan of Apple I have no reservation saying these screens are really lovely. Google has managed to create a grid system and “button-less” aesthetic that doesn’t feel as unfinished as the new Ive’s led iOS design.Though I have always felt iOS7 was designed knowing larger screens were in the pipeline and would look considerably less cramped. It’d be interesting to compare/contrast against a 3.5" or 4" screen.

After all this time I’d begun to think Matias just had a really solid team behind him at Palm as everything that came out of Google since then has disappointed. It’s not enough to make me switch primary devices, but I’m looking forward to it when testing.

 

[drfisheye]

That generic email client really wastes a lot of space in the tablet view.

The actual gmail app fortunately doesn't make that mistake.

 

[phoenix_rizzen]

What is with all the pastel colours, though? And all the extra white everywhere? These screens are way too bright. Going to be absolute hell for anyone using an OLED screen (say goodbye to your battery). And going to be a royal pain to use outdoors; or anywhere dark! (Unless you forgot to bring your flashlight, then it will be a godsend.)

Pure white should not be used over 80-odd% of the screen like that. It's going to give a lot of people eye strain and headaches. Especially those of us with blue eyes.

I really, sincerely hope the alternative Android ROM developers don't remove their Dark UI options. And that alternative gapps developers don't remove their inverted colour options (TRDS support is wonderful).

 

[TBoneT]

wh1terav3n[/url]":hziuoe7r]Something just feels wrong about it to my eye. I think they may have gone too far toward "pretty" on the scale between usability and pretty. As others have argued about, there is a distinct lack of information density here. When playing an album, I HAVE to scroll to see the tracks? As others have said "it's just a scroll", but I have a feeling that on the 1000th time I have to do it, I'm going to be really annoyed.

Same for the tablet calendar with the useless header image pushing down the actual calendar. Why? It's pretty, but not very usable. I just haven't been able to like much about this redesign. It's cohesive, and it's actually a design language that exists, so that's an improvement. Maybe I'll like it when I am, inevitably, forced to use it.

I went back and looked at the screenshots again with a focus on information density and the amount of wasted real estate is incredible. Anything larger than a small tablet is wasting space around the edges. The screenshot with the "Next Track" on the music player drove me nuts because it couldn't actually fit the title of the next track on the screen. If they just moved everything a little closer together it would work!

 

[TBoneT]

phoenix_rizzen[/url]":1xfzb1ck]What is with all the pastel colours, though? And all the extra white everywhere? These screens are way too bright. Going to be absolute hell for anyone using an OLED screen (say goodbye to your battery). And going to be a royal pain to use outdoors; or anywhere dark! (Unless you forgot to bring your flashlight, then it will be a godsend.)

Pure white should not be used over 80-odd% of the screen like that. It's going to give a lot of people eye strain and headaches. Especially those of us with blue eyes.

I really, sincerely hope the alternative Android ROM developers don't remove their Dark UI options. And that alternative gapps developers don't remove their inverted colour options (TRDS support is wonderful).

I hate looking at the Clock app on my iPhone first thing in the morning. Even with the brightness turned all the way down it is still too bright.

 

[sttlmark]

icon (noun): a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol of something.

So what the hell do a triangle, square, and circle represent? I hate, hate, hate some of these new design trends... talk about form over function!

There are a lot of bad decisions here, all in the name of flatness. Why doesn't the keyboard have buttons? And my eye couldn't quickly make sense of Chrome's new tab switcher... is the old drop shadow between browser tabs really so horrible? And, while I'm at it, how about a day view in the calendar that isn't 99.99% white pixels... when did hour markers become passé??

All in all this is very annoying. It's a bunch of trendy changes that harm usability and discoverability because you can no longer tell at glance what's clickable (er, "tappable"? "touchable"? "long-pressable"?) and behavior of these minimalist, semi-invisible controls is no longer self-evident.

I think this is a case of a bunch of designers trying to justify their existence. New isn't always better. And get off my lawn.

 

[MadMaximus]

I applaud their attempts to make a more consistent, cohesive UX (which they appear to be succeeding at with these) but it just doesn't look quite right somehow. There's too much wasted space. I'm all for negative space but it just looks barren in places.

It's a great foundation and I hope it gets picked up more by OEM's and app developers, but it still needs some polish. I'm not overly keen on the desaturated colour palette either. There's a distinct lack of contrast between elements. Everything just looks kind of mushed together. The "Metro" UI Microsoft use at the moment suffers from a similar issue.

 

[Danrarbc]

wh1terav3n[/url]":3g3mcxda]Something just feels wrong about it to my eye. I think they may have gone too far toward "pretty" on the scale between usability and pretty. As others have argued about, there is a distinct lack of information density here. When playing an album, I HAVE to scroll to see the tracks? As others have said "it's just a scroll", but I have a feeling that on the 1000th time I have to do it, I'm going to be really annoyed.

In Google Play Music right now the track list is on a different 'screen' entirely in the phone layout. Scrolling is an improvement IMO.

MadMaximus[/url]":3g3mcxda]I applaud their attempts to make a more consistent, cohesive UX (which they appear to be succeeding at with these) but it just doesn't look quite right somehow. There's too much wasted space. I'm all for negative space but it just looks barren in places.

It's a great foundation and I hope it gets picked up more by OEM's and app developers, but it still needs some polish. I'm not overly keen on the desaturated colour palette either. There's a distinct lack of contrast between elements. Everything just looks kind of mushed together. The "Metro" UI Microsoft use at the moment suffers from a similar issue.

There's a lack of contrast because these don't appear to be following the guidelines for shadowing, either due to their early state or because they're mockups (also note the color of the keyboard). The Material design docs specifically call out that shadows should be used on elements that can be pulled up or interacted with.

 

[duraeas]

While it's evident that I enjoy the new design moreso than others here, my experience with the Docs/Sheets/Slides apps has shown me that I really dislike the round action buttons.

Most of the UI is flat with straight lines, and these round buttons with the fake shadow effect stand out like a sore thumb. Look at the Keep application, which has no yellow anywhere in the UI except the button, on top of orange - there's no cohesiveness to the presentation here whatsoever, which I don't feel to be the case in the current app.

I understand the aesthetic they're going for - paper elevated on paper - but Apple's pre-overhaul UI made it clear that flat panel screens aren't able to adequately capture depth or texture. I wish they'd use similar principles but stick to making it flat.

 

[thomsirveaux]

TBoneT[/url]":2vjz3pgl]

wh1terav3n[/url]":2vjz3pgl]Something just feels wrong about it to my eye. I think they may have gone too far toward "pretty" on the scale between usability and pretty. As others have argued about, there is a distinct lack of information density here. When playing an album, I HAVE to scroll to see the tracks? As others have said "it's just a scroll", but I have a feeling that on the 1000th time I have to do it, I'm going to be really annoyed.

Same for the tablet calendar with the useless header image pushing down the actual calendar. Why? It's pretty, but not very usable. I just haven't been able to like much about this redesign. It's cohesive, and it's actually a design language that exists, so that's an improvement. Maybe I'll like it when I am, inevitably, forced to use it.

I went back and looked at the screenshots again with a focus on information density and the amount of wasted real estate is incredible. Anything larger than a small tablet is wasting space around the edges. The screenshot with the "Next Track" on the music player drove me nuts because it couldn't actually fit the title of the next track on the screen. If they just moved everything a little closer together it would work!

That's the way they've been moving in general lately. Every time I dust the Nexus 10 off (so, roughly every time there's a major Android update) I'm surprised by how even Google's apps don't really look like they were made to take advantage of the screen space.

 

[DarkSkyForever]

I've been using the L preview/beta on my Nexus 5 since it was released a week or so ago, and I've got to say that I'm really liking it. Excited to see what they'll come out with once its completely ready.

 

[DonIncognito]

Kudos to the Dandelion Chocolate in the maps pictures. Great place!

On topic, I love the new tablet gmail interface. Hope it trickles down to iPad.

 

[groghunter]

I'm between ambivalent & not enthused for most of the design, but I do like the tablet music app showing the album art nice & big. Really hope the phone version doesn't cut off the edges of the album art anymore either, I'm over that noise.

 

[xizar]

drfisheye[/url]":kbu45j0u]That generic email client really wastes a lot of space in the tablet view.

The actual gmail app fortunately doesn't make that mistake.

I disagree. Try using the gmail app on an iphone in landscape mode. You get roughly one line of visible space in the email while trying to type anything.

 

[Deleted member 1]

It's pretty. For the most part, I hate it. I'll be using as little of it as possible if the looks aren't configurable. As is, I don't use many Google apps anyway, except for Maps and some Youtube. If they're just showcasing the most stylish versions of their interfaces, that's fine, but I prefer much higher information density 95% of the time. Also, I was finally used to and preferring Google's back, home, and app select icons. Changing the look just pisses me off for no apparent added utility.

 

[althaz]

drfisheye[/url]":2cm9q1k2]That generic email client really wastes a lot of space in the tablet view.

The actual gmail app fortunately doesn't make that mistake.

The tablet view looks to be an exact copy of the Metro Outlook client that was leaked a while ago. The outlook screened were blue instead of orang, but otherwise identical.

Overall these are very Metro-y. This is both good (because metro works really well on touch devices) and bad (because Google ought to be able to come up something even better).

 

[ubercurmudgeon]

Triangle circle square square triangle circle square circle circle? Triangle!

That is all I have to say on this matter.

 

[famousringo]

This is the first Android UI I've seen which I actually like. I think the use of drop shadows is particularly elegant.

On the con side, the playstation shapes on the button bar at the bottom still seem strange to me and I absolutely loathe the lack of any visible borders in the soft keyboard.

 

[mrsilver]

I have to say, I really like the design.

However once all the OEMs get their hands on this then you're going to end up with a whole mishmash of design styles leading to a whole range of inconsistencies. One minute you'll be in lovely Android L design land, you'll hit the home button and *bam* you're in the hell that is TouchWiz world.

In addition, whilst some of the screens we've seen look great, outside of Nexus and Android One* we are probably never going to ever experience them that way as they'll get replaced by the OEMs own version. For example, contacts and the dialler spring immediately to mind

* and maybe Motorola - assuming Lenovo don't dump all the good that Google has done and, like everyone else, blindly follow Samsung.

 

[Carcass666]

It seems as if there is an inverse relationship between length of the terms and conditions we are supposed to review for mobile OSs and apps, versus the amount of on-screen information and cues displayed to help use them successfully.

Perhaps the lawyers and designers could switch jobs for a bit...

 

[Chemical Tribe]

ubercurmudgeon[/url]":2v34glg9]Triangle circle square square triangle circle square circle circle? Triangle!

That is all I have to say on this matter.

That may be changing back to the current icons, albeit tweaked. Android police found such an example in the examples posted by google.

 

[mrsilver]

sttlmark[/url]":18cvetgt]icon (noun): a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol of something.

So what the hell do a triangle, square, and circle represent? I hate, hate, hate some of these new design trends... talk about form over function!

To be fair the existing iconography isn't exactly obvious on what the buttons represent either:

To someone who has never seen them before, the middle one looks like an arrow up and the right one looks like a 3D cube.

I think a chimney on the roof (and maybe a front door) would have made it more obvious that it was "home" but I've no idea how you could represent "running apps" in an easy to understand icon.

 

[ChrisSD]

mrsilver[/url]":3aglkjcf]

sttlmark[/url]":3aglkjcf]icon (noun): a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol of something.

So what the hell do a triangle, square, and circle represent? I hate, hate, hate some of these new design trends... talk about form over function!

To be fair the existing iconography isn't exactly obvious on what the buttons represent either:

To someone who has never seen them before, the middle one looks like an arrow up and the right one looks like a 3D cube.

I'll think you'll find that middle one is meant to be an envelope..

 

[bug77]

TBoneT[/url]":2ba75uew]

wh1terav3n[/url]":2ba75uew]Something just feels wrong about it to my eye. I think they may have gone too far toward "pretty" on the scale between usability and pretty. As others have argued about, there is a distinct lack of information density here. When playing an album, I HAVE to scroll to see the tracks? As others have said "it's just a scroll", but I have a feeling that on the 1000th time I have to do it, I'm going to be really annoyed.

Same for the tablet calendar with the useless header image pushing down the actual calendar. Why? It's pretty, but not very usable. I just haven't been able to like much about this redesign. It's cohesive, and it's actually a design language that exists, so that's an improvement. Maybe I'll like it when I am, inevitably, forced to use it.

I went back and looked at the screenshots again with a focus on information density and the amount of wasted real estate is incredible. Anything larger than a small tablet is wasting space around the edges. The screenshot with the "Next Track" on the music player drove me nuts because it couldn't actually fit the title of the next track on the screen. If they just moved everything a little closer together it would work!

I'm reading this on my 24" monitor and I've just measured the empty space left and right of the comments column: the useful part is less than a third of the real-estate.
This is not specific to Ars, I notice this problem very often while surfing. But it doesn't seem to irk that many people.

 

[Aurich]

bug77[/url]":3mztr5rp]I'm reading this on my 24" monitor and I've just measured the empty space left and right of the comments column: the useful part is less than a third of the real-estate.
This is not specific to Ars, I notice this problem very often while surfing. But it doesn't seem to irk that many people.

You can't really compare a phone interface to a desktop interface like that. For example, readability is reduced when line length in a story extends past a certain point. If we reflowed the text in articles to take the entire width of your monitor it's true that the information density would go up, but it would be less readable as a result.

So it's always about a balance. When you're dealing with a small screen then pixels count for a lot more than a 24" monitor because you're inherently dealing with space on that screen that's not necessarily of great benefit to use on the desktop. Sans some intersting responsive design, like if we populated empty screen space with a separate dashboard or something (I've considered thoughts like that).

On a phone to contrast that you're really not free to throw any space away, so white space and negative space and spacing has to be very carefully considered.

 

[Sajuuk]

For the most part I think it looks really nice, clean, and definitely what Android needs at this point; on the other hand, the lack if actual information on screen in some cases (the new Play Store, especially), is appalling

 

[Carcass666]

bug77[/url]":1mrpgaho]

TBoneT[/url]":1mrpgaho]

wh1terav3n[/url]":1mrpgaho]Something just feels wrong about it to my eye. I think they may have gone too far toward "pretty" on the scale between usability and pretty. As others have argued about, there is a distinct lack of information density here. When playing an album, I HAVE to scroll to see the tracks? As others have said "it's just a scroll", but I have a feeling that on the 1000th time I have to do it, I'm going to be really annoyed.

Same for the tablet calendar with the useless header image pushing down the actual calendar. Why? It's pretty, but not very usable. I just haven't been able to like much about this redesign. It's cohesive, and it's actually a design language that exists, so that's an improvement. Maybe I'll like it when I am, inevitably, forced to use it.

I went back and looked at the screenshots again with a focus on information density and the amount of wasted real estate is incredible. Anything larger than a small tablet is wasting space around the edges. The screenshot with the "Next Track" on the music player drove me nuts because it couldn't actually fit the title of the next track on the screen. If they just moved everything a little closer together it would work!

I'm reading this on my 24" monitor and I've just measured the empty space left and right of the comments column: the useful part is less than a third of the real-estate.
This is not specific to Ars, I notice this problem very often while surfing. But it doesn't seem to irk that many people.

You should go on Slashdot and search for comments on Beta...

 

[Sajuuk]

digi99[/url]":qnh5ztl2]Dear Google,

Stop spending money on useless things like glasses and cars and hire some freaking designers that aren't incompetent because, good god, that is absolutely a disgrace to the name of design.

Sincerely,
The World

Duarte

 

[Nick_L]

Sigh. This looks to be the first version of android where I will actually be looking forward to Samsung touch"wizzing" all over it.

Can we bump up the information density, please, Google? It's as if google is somehow getting paid every single time you touch your screen.

 

[Sajuuk]

digi99[/url]":xm7bozbg]

Sajuuk[/url]":xm7bozbg]

digi99[/url]":xm7bozbg]Dear Google,

Stop spending money on useless things like glasses and cars and hire some freaking designers that aren't incompetent because, good god, that is absolutely a disgrace to the name of design.

Sincerely,
The World

Duarte

And? Thank you for proving my point.

Spending money on useless things so they're stuck hiring no name designers that suck.

Something something not sure if serious

 

[ParadiseLost]

Good thing I have a Samsung tablet, it will never get this "upgrade" anyway. I never thought I'd say that...

This is what happens when ego-tripped designers are allowed to run wild and the fact that software is meant to be actually used rather than merely stared at is overlooked.