Book Image

Android UI Design

By : Jessica Thornsby
Book Image

Android UI Design

By: Jessica Thornsby

Overview of this book

<p>Great design is one of the key drivers in the adoption of new applications, yet unfortunately design considerations are often neglected in the face of “will it work,” “can we make it quicker,” or “can we get more people using it”?</p> <p>This book seeks to redress this balance by showing you how to get your PM to start treating the design phase of your project seriously. This book is focused entirely on the development of UI features, and you’ll be able to practically implementing the design practices that we extol throughout the book.</p> <p>Starting by briefly outlining some of the factors you need to keep in mind when building a UI, you’ll learn the concepts of Android User Interface from scratch. We then move on to formulate a plan on how to implement these concepts in various applications. We will deep dive into how UI features are implemented in real-world applications where UIs are complex and dynamic.</p> <p>This book offers near complete coverage of UI-specific content including, views, fragments, the wireframing process, and how to add in splash screens—everything you need to make professional standard UIs for modern applications. It will then cover material design and show you how to implement Google's design aesthetic in a practical manner. Finally, it ensures the best possible user experience by analyzing the UI using various tools, and then addressing any problems they uncover.</p> <p>By the end of the book, you’ll be able to leverage the concepts of Android User Interface in your applications in order to attract new customers.</p>
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Android UI Design
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface

Buttons and ImageButtons


Buttons (and by extension, ImageButtons) are UI components that react to the user tapping the screen. Whenever you add a button to your UI, it should be immediately clear to the user what this button will do when they touch it.

While you could inform the user about a button's purpose with an accompanying TextView (something along the lines of tap the button below to move onto the next screen) this is wordy and inefficient. Most of the time, you'll want to communicate a button's purpose by adding a label to this button.

Android provides you with several labeling options:

  • A text label, for example Next, Submit, or Cancel.

  • An image icon, such as a checkmark or a cross icon.

  • Both! If the button represents an unusual, unexpected, or complicated action, you may want to clear up any potential confusion by labeling the button with both text and an image:

Depending on whether you want your button to display text, an icon, or both, you can add a button to your layout resource...