Android User Interface Design

Ian G. Clifton is a professional Android application developer, user experience advocate, and author. He has worked with many developers and designers, and led Android teams, creating well-known apps such as Saga, CNET News, CBS News, and more. Ian’s love of technology, art, and user experience has led him along a variety of paths. In addition to Android development, he has done platform, web, and desktop development. He served in the U.S. Air Force as a Satellite, Wideband, and Telemetry Systems Journeyman and has also created quite a bit of art with pencil, charcoal, brush, camera, and even wo You can follow Ian G. Clifton on Twitter at  https://twitter.com/iangclifton and see his thoughts about mobile development on his blog at  http://blog.iangclifton.com/. He has also published videos for aspiring Android developers, most recently releasing “The Essentials of Android Application Development, Second Edition,” which is available at  http://www.informit.com/store/essentials-of-android-application-development-livelessons-9780134068145.

Introduction     1
Audience for This Book     1
Organization of This Book     1
How to Use This Book     2
This Book’s Website     2
Conventions Used in This Book     2

PART I:  THE BASICS OF ANDROID USER INTERFACES
Chapter 1  Android UI and Material Design     5
A Brief History of Android Design     6
Material Design     8
The Android Design Website     13
Core Principles     14
Standard Components     20
Supporting Multiple Devices     23
Avoiding Painful Mistakes     24
Summary     26
Chapter 2  Understanding Views—The UI Building Blocks     27
What Is a View?      28
Displaying Text     34
Displaying Images     39
Views for Gathering User Input     42
Other Notable Views     45
Listening to Events     47
Other Listeners     48
Summary     49
Chapter 3  Creating Full Layouts With View Groups and Fragments     51
Understanding ViewGroup and the Common    
Implementations     52
Encapsulating View Logic with Fragments     64
The Support Library     70
Summary     74
Chapter 4  Adding App Graphics and Resources     75
Introduction to Resources in Android     76
Resource Qualifiers     76
Understanding Density     81
Supported Image Files     83
Nine-Patch Images     84
XML Drawables     86
Other Resources     101
Summary     106

PART II:  THE FULL DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
Chapter 5  Starting A New App     107
Design Methods     108
Defining Goals     110
High-Level Flow     114
Wireframes     117
Continuing with Content Pieces     122
Summary     128
Chapter 6  Prototyping and Developing the App Foundation     129
Organizing into Activities and Fragments     130
Creating the First Prototype     131
Evaluating the First Prototype     160
Summary     165
Chapter 7  Designing the Visuals     167
Wireframes and Graphical Design     168
Tools     168
Styles     169
Lighting     171
Colors     171
Text Considerations     178
Other Considerations     183
Designing Step-by-Step     185
Summary     189
Chapter 8  Applying the Design     191
Working with the Designer     192
Slicing the Graphics Assets     193
Themes and Styles     199
Breaking Comps into Views     200
Developing the Woodworking App     201
Basic Testing Across Device Types     228
Summary     229
Chapter 9  Polishing with Animations     231
Purpose of Animations     232
View Animations     232
Property Animations     233
Property Animation Control     235
ViewPropertyAnimator     241
Animating Form Errors     242
Animating Icons     246
Simple Transitions     252
Summary     262

PART III:  ADVANCED TOPICS FOR ANDROID USER INTERFACES
Chapter 10  Using Advanced Techniques     263
Identifying Jank     264
Using Systrace to Understand Jank     265
Optimizing Images     272
Additional Performance Improvements     283
Hierarchy Viewer     289
Custom Fonts     293
Complex TextViews     295
RecyclerView     299
Summary     300
Chapter 11  Working with the Canvas and Advanced Drawing     303
Creating Custom Drawables     304
Paint     305
Canvas     305
Working with Text     306
Working with Images     310
Color Filters     313
Shaders     325
Summary     330
Chapter 12  Developing Custom Views     331
General Concepts     332
Measurement     332
Layout     333
Drawing     333
Saving and Restoring State     334
Creating a Custom View     334
Summary     347
Chapter 13  Handling Input and Scrolling     349
Touch Input     350
Other Forms of Input     351
Creating a Custom View     352
Summary     385
Appendix A  Google Play Assets     387
Application Description     388
The Change Log     389
Application Icon     389
Screenshots     395
Feature Graphic     397
Promotional Graphic     399
Video (YouTube)      400
Promoting Your App     400
Amazon Appstore     401
Appendix B  Common Task Reference     403
Dismissing the Software Keyboard     404
Using Full Screen Mode     404
Keeping the Screen On     405
Determining the Device’s Physical Screen Size     406
Determining the Device’s Screen Size in Pixels     406
Determining the Device DPI     407
Checking for a Network Connection     408
Checking if the Current Thread Is the UI Thread     408
Custom View Attributes     409
Index     417