A while back during CES, Google’s Director of Android user experience Matias Duarte announced a set of official Android design guidelines that would help app developers give their creations a interface that suited the Operating System. Although the guidelines covered nearly everything needed by developers, Google seems to think that it will need more improvements to make the guidelines even more effective by adding a few more details to it today.
The new additions feature things that developers should and shouldn’t use the ‘settings’ menu in their apps for. A flowchart with questions like “is it actually a user preference?” and if the answer is no, then developers should not make that particular command a setting. This has been done to help developers avoid the temptation of turning everything into a setting from their apps. Besides that, Google has also added some new guidelines with regards to navigation.
It reportedly covers navigation between apps, into apps, into apps via widgets or notification menus and so on and so forth. There is also a section as to how developers should or should not use Android’s “back” button versus “up” button which is specific to apps as well. If you are looking to learn more about what is contained in the latest update of Android Design Guidelines, you can visit the updated Android design site here.
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