Tag Archives: UX

Spotlight Week: Design and Develop Widgets

Posted by Ash Nohe and Summers Pitman – Developer Relations Engineers

We’re kicking off the next edition in our Spotlight Week series! This week, we'll be diving deep into how to create high-quality widgets that boost user engagement and improve discoverability.

We've heard your feedback: you want your widgets to be easily discoverable. To address this, we’re excited to share that Google Play is introducing a new search filter specifically for apps with high-quality widgets. By equipping you with the knowledge and tools to ensure your widgets shine, we aim to demonstrate how widgets can be a crucial element in building delightful, helpful, and performant widgets that keep your users engaged. Learn more about Google Play’s widget discovery features.



Here’s what we’re covering this week in our Spotlight Week on Widgets:

Why Widgets?

Monday, March 3rd

We’re kicking off the week with an overview of why widgets are essential for today's users. Learn how you can level up your app with Widgets and get inspired by these best-in-class examples. Plus, learn how Google Play is improving widget discovery through a dedicated search filter, new app detail page badges, and other enhancements designed to increase user interaction.

Design great widgets with Figma and Canonical Layouts

Tuesday, March 4th

Learn how to visualize your content in widget layouts and create high quality widgets with a new Figma resource, hands-on lab and blog with the Canonical Layouts. Learn from SoundCloud's experience: a case study showcasing impactful widget implementation.

Develop best practice widgets with Glance

Wednesday, March 5th

Follow our code-along video to learn practical widget update techniques using Canonical Layouts.

#AskAndroid

Thursday, March 6th

Get your widget questions answered in #AskAndroid, and dive into lockscreen widgets in our FAQ.


That's a week packed with widget insights! This blog post serves as your central hub for updates, with links added regularly throughout the week. Get even more widgets content and insights by following Android Developers on X, and Android by Google at Linkedin.


Resources

Meet the Android Studio Team: A Conversation with Android Developer UX Manager, Dan Dole

Posted by Ashley Tschudin – Social Media Specialist, MTP at Google

Welcome to "Meet the Android Studio Team"! In this blog series, we introduce you to the passionate people who create the Android development tools you use every day. Get to know the engineers, designers, product managers, and more who work hard to craft the best possible experience for Android developers, and explore their unique perspectives.

Dan Dole: Building Android Studio for You

Meet Dan Dole, a UX Manager for Android Developer UX, who offers a unique perspective on the Android development journey. He highlights the passion and talent within the Android Developer team, emphasizing the importance of elegant solutions and efficient experiences for developers.

Dan also delves into the exciting potential of AI and machine learning to transform Android development, foreseeing a future where AI accelerates learning, refines code, and empowers developers to focus on innovation.

Through his insights, Dan underscores the collaborative spirit and unwavering commitment to developer success that defines the Android Developer Experience.

Can you tell us about your journey to becoming a part of the Android Studio team? What sparked your interest in Android development?

My journey with Android Development and the Android Studio team started with a conversation with a former colleague and the product lead for Android Developer. She was a leader I respected as someone who was passionate about developers, and believed that UX was a critical component of product development. After meeting with her and understanding the direction of Android, I was convinced that Android could be not just an outstanding mobile platform but a platform that spanned devices, and this was an organization that was focused on enabling developers to bring their talents and creativity to billions of users. Each year, I see us advancing in that direction and feel more confident in my choice to be part of the Android Developer team.

This question can’t be answered without mentioning that the people working on Android Developer tools and APIs are some of the most passionate and talented people I have ever worked with.

What are some of the biggest challenges you've faced in your career as a developer, and how have those experiences shaped your approach to your job?

I am a UX professional in a highly technical environment. This has been the case for about two decades. One of the challenges I have faced is articulating the value of elegant solutions for developers.

This is partially because developers are very capable and resourceful. Clearly, they are tolerant and they will overcome issues that average users won’t. Prior to joining Android Developer Experience, I would have to create processes and negotiate quality bars to drive quality and build efficient experiences.

This challenge gave me skill in release management and how to understand some complexities unique to this space, but it also gave me tools to help explain that developers may be able to manage complexity better than most. Developers appreciate refinement, productivity, and quality, as much as they appreciate flexibility and capability.

How has the integration of AI and machine learning impacted Android developer capabilities, and how do you see it evolving in the future?

We are in the very early stages of AI and its ability to impact developers. As we learn how to be transparent and give developers control over how an AI can benefit them, we are seeing an immediate impact on accelerating learning and refining code.

I expect AI to remove the “chores” that developers have to do, creating more space for them to be productive. I also expect AI to evolve from generating artifacts to generating actions. Making AI features more proactive and allowing developers to more quickly adjust to users' needs.

How does the Android Studio team ensure that products or features meet the ever-changing needs of developers?

I lead our Android Developer research and design team. We spent countless hours listening to developers, evaluating feedback, and understanding technology investments. We approach these conversations and instruments by evaluating what we have already delivered, looking and listening to the challenges developers face, and designing and evaluating new approaches.

The Android Developer team (ENG, Product, UX and Test) are motivated by supporting developers, so all developer feedback is received with gratitude and influences all our investments.

What advice would you give to aspiring Android developers who are just starting their journey?

Android is a vibrant and welcoming community, so my advice would be to engage the community. It is where we learn, inspire and grow together. I have heard many Android developers talk about the pride they have working on this platform and the conviction they have in it being the best platform to work on. I feel like this is unique to Android, the platform isn’t a means to an end, it’s an identity and value system. Android is a community of amazing people, get involved.

Make Gemini in Android Studio Your Coding Companion

Embrace Dan's vision for the future of Android development and explore the latest AI advancements in Android Studio. Features like AI-powered code generation and refactoring tools empower you to develop higher-quality apps with greater efficiency.

Stay tuned!

Want to meet more of the Android Studio team? Stay tuned for future installments of this series, where we'll introduce you to new faces and share their unique insights.

Find Dan Dole on LinkedIn.

Meet the Android Studio Team: A Conversation with Engineering Director, Tor Norbye

Posted by Ashley Tschudin – Social Media Specialist, MTP at Google

Welcome to "Meet the Android Studio Team," our new ongoing blog series. Each week, we'll introduce you to the talented people behind Android Studio. Get to know the engineers, designers, product managers, and more who create the best possible experience for Android developers like you. Join us and explore their unique perspectives.

Tor Norbye: Building Android Studio for You

Trevor Johns, Staff Developer Programs Engineer

Meet Tor Norbye, an Engineering Director at Google leading the development of Android Studio.

From his early days of coding to leading the charge on AI-powered development tools, Tor shares his insights on the evolution of Android and the vital role Android Studio plays in its future.

We'll delve into the challenges of creating developer tools, the importance of community feedback, and how Google strives to empower developers worldwide.


Can you tell us about your journey to becoming a part of the Android Studio team? What sparked your interest in Android development?

I grew up in Norway and I was fascinated by programming; my first exposure was as a middle schooler reading program listings in magazines (yes, in the early 80s, monthly computer magazines would include source code!) and in 1983 I got my hands on a microcomputer, and knew immediately that's what I wanted to do as a career. And now, 40+ years later, I still love programming. It's not my day-job anymore, but I still write bits and pieces of code for Android Studio on the shuttle and during quiet periods.

I've worked on developer tools my whole career - first, 14 years at Sun Microsystems after college. In 2010 I got increasingly interested in the rise of mobile computing and really wanted to be part of it, so I joined the Android team, and I've been here since.

Back then there was no "Android Studio". At the time we were working on Eclipse-based tooling for Android development. But we all knew that IntelliJ was the gold-standard for Java development, so a couple years later we began the work on building Android Studio on top of IntelliJ and with various new and ported code from our Eclipse plugins. I then had the honor of doing the unveiling demo at Google I/O in 2013.

How has the integration of AI and machine learning impacted Android developer capabilities, and how do you see it evolving in the future?

The integration of artificial intelligence has absolutely impacted Android developer capabilities, and this is just the beginning.

I felt very fortunate to be part of bringing about the massive shift from desktop computing to mobile computing when I joined Android, and I can't believe I get to be in the middle of a second massive industry shift as well, with AI and large language models.

I actually spend a lot of my time on this, working with Studio engineers, UX and product managers on our various AI related features, and talking to partner AI teams at Google. We've made a huge amount of progress in the last couple of years, both on the Studio feature integration side, as well as Google-wide on the AI side. While there is some skepticism that we're just doing AI features for AI's sake, I don't see it that way. With AI, we can suddenly, with relatively low effort, build useful features not previously possible.

Here's a very simple example from the latest Studio version: When you invoke the Rename refactoring feature, we use Gemini to add additional naming suggestions into the name popup based on what your code is doing. Here we're helping you pick good names – and naming is famously one of the two hardest problems in computer science – naming, cache invalidation and off-by-one errors. Yet LLMs are good at this – so coupled with the safe refactoring machinery in the IDE, we were able to safely add a useful feature with relatively low engineering cost on the IDE side (of course, this is building on top of a massive investment from Google over on the Gemini side).

The field is moving incredibly quickly, so it's hard to predict where things are going, but we're actively working in several areas, making the AI more aware of your codebase, and making it handle larger, complex tasks via AI Agents, and so much more.

What are some of the biggest challenges you've faced in your career as a developer, and how have those experiences shaped your approach to your job?

Earlier in my career, at a different company, we had big annual releases. I took a lot of pride in my productivity, and as my responsibilities grew, I'd try to do the impossible and deliver, no matter what. I'd not only work long hours, but I'd also try to work as quickly as I can. This led to a lot of stress. I remember putting my (at the time) young children to bed and impatiently waiting for them to fall asleep such that I could head back out to the garage office and start the evening coding shift. And I knew that stress isn't healthy, so I'd also stress about being stressed! This obviously wasn't sustainable.

Now, I emphasize work life balance not only for myself, but also for our team. I want to make sure our work is sustainable, and that people can thrive and be in it for the long term. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

Can you share an example of how feedback from the developer community has directly influenced a feature or improvement?

We have a number of feedback channels; the most important one is the Android Studio issue tracker.

We still have a very large backlog of bugs, so it's easy to get the impression that we're ignoring user reports, but that's not true. As a team, we've actually fixed several thousand bugs in 2024 alone. The best bugs are those that are clear and actionable, ideally with steps to reproduce.

I'm also very thankful to everyone who turns on data sharing in Studio; if you don't already, please consider it! Our analytics is more of an indirect, but still vital, feedback channel from the community. In addition to collecting information on, for example, which menu items are clicked, we also use it to collect quality metrics on system health. For instance, when we detect that the UI is lagging (such as a 1+ second freeze in the UI thread), we grab a thread dump and send it to the server, then aggregate these into a dashboard where we can see top freeze spots in the IDE across the user population, and can focus our efforts on fixing those.

How does the Studio team contribute to Google's broader vision for the Android platform?

In Android Studio we're always making sure we support the latest technologies and recommendations from Android, Firebase, Material, and other Google technologies. That way, it's easier for developers to adopt recommendations, like using Kotlin, Coroutines, Compose, Material, and so on.

Explore the Power of AI

Unlock the full potential of AI in your Android development journey. Explore the latest advancements in Android Studio, including intelligent code completion, automated refactoring, and other AI-driven tools.

Stay tuned!

Don't miss our next and final installment in the "Meet the Android Studio Team" series; we'll feature one more talented team member and share their unique perspective. Stay tuned to learn more about the amazing people behind Android Studio.

Find Tor Norbye on Bluesky.

Meet the Android Studio Team: A Conversation with Staff Developer Programs Engineer, Trevor Johns

Posted by Ashley Tschudin – Social Media Specialist, MTP at Google

Android Studio isn't just code and algorithms – it's built by real people with fascinating stories. Our "Meet the Android Studio Team" series gives you a glimpse into the lives and passions of the talented individuals who craft the tools you use every day. Tune in each month to meet new team members and discover their unique journey.

Trevor Johns: Building Android Studio for You

Trevor Johns, Staff Developer Programs Engineer

Meet Trevor Johns, a seasoned Staff Developer Programs Engineer at Google.

Reflecting on his journey, Trevor sheds light on the most impactful advancements in the Android ecosystem and offers a glimpse into his vision for the future where AI plays a pivotal role in streamlining development workflows.

Trevor discusses the Android Studio team's dedication to enhancing developer productivity through AI, highlighting their focus on understanding and addressing developer needs, and reflects on the dynamic journey of Android development while sharing valuable insights.


Can you tell us about your journey to becoming a part of the Android Studio team? What sparked your interest in Android development?

I've been at Google in various roles since Google since 2007, and transferred to Android team in 2009 shortly after the launch of the HTC G1 — the first publicly available Android phone. Even in those early days it was clear that mobile computing was a unique opportunity to reimagine many of the limitations of desktop computers and how users interact with the digital world.

Among my first projects were helping developers optimize their apps for the MyTouch 3G and Motorola Droid, as well as creating developer resources for Android's 1.6 Donut release.

Over the years, I've worked on various parts of the Android OS including our first tablet devices, Android Wear, helping develop the original Android support libraries (which later became Jetpack), and the migration to Kotlin.

Recently I joined the Android Studio team to help improve developer productivity, using AI to streamline common developer tasks and help developers have more time to focus on creativity.

How does the Android Studio team ensure that products or features meet the ever-changing needs of developers?

Like the rest of Android, we approach development of new features by listening to our developer community. We hold regular listening sessions with publishers, work with our UX research team to conduct case studies, and participate in online discussions to get a sense for where developers face the most friction — and then try to find ways to reduce that friction.

For example, we developed Gemini in Android Studio's integration with Play Vitals and Firebase Crashlytics based on feedback from members of the developer community who commented to let us know where they would find AI most useful across their developer workflow.

Speaking of, if you'd like to provide us with feedback, you can always file a bug or feature request on the Android Studio issue tracker.

How does the Studio team contribute to Google's broader vision for the Android platform?

In addition to listening to the Android community, we also keep an eye on what's being developed across the rest of the Android team and make sure that Android Studio has the right tools to help developers quickly migrate between Android versions and adopt those new platform features.

Beyond that, the Studio team provides leading edge editing tools to make sure that Android remains one of the easiest computing platforms to develop for — unlocking this unique computing platform for millions of developers.

In your opinion, what is the most impactful feature or improvement the Android team has introduced in recent years, and why?

For developers, my answer would have to be the migration to Kotlin. This language has modernized the Android developer experience — letting developers write apps with less code and fewer errors. It's also the foundation for Jetpack Compose, which is the future of Android UI development.

If you could wave a magic wand and add one dream feature to the Android universe, what would it be and why?

I'd love to see Gemini be able to not just autocomplete code for me, but generate scaffolds for new projects. That way I can focus on building features rather than worrying about basic structure when starting a new project.

Develop Android Apps with Kotlin

Follow Trevor's lead and embrace the power of Kotlin for modern Android development. Enhance your skills and write better Android apps faster with Kotlin.

Stay tuned!

Get ready for another inspiring story! The "Meet the Android Studio Team" series continues next week with a new team member in the spotlight. Don't miss their unique insights and journey.

Find Trevor Johns on LinkedIn, X, Bluesky, and Medium.

Meet the Android Studio Team: A Conversation with Director of Product Management, Jamal Eason

Posted by Ashley Tschudin – Social Media Specialist, MTP at Google

Dive into the world of Android Studio and meet the masterminds behind your favorite development tools! In our recurring blog series, "Meet the Android Studio Team," we'll introduce you to the brilliant engineers, designers, product managers, and more who are shaping the future of Android development.

Join us each week to uncover the unique perspectives and stories of the people who make Android Studio the best it can be.

Jamal Eason: Building better Android apps - insights on Gemini, Crashlytics, and App Quality

Meet Jamal Eason, a Director of Product Management at Google, whose passion for empowering developers shines through in his work on Android Studio.

His journey, from studying computer science at West Point to developing Android hardware at Intel (including contributions to the Motorola Razr i), showcases a deep understanding of the developer experience. From attending the very first Android Studio unveiling at Google I/O to now shaping its future, Jamal brings a unique perspective to the team.

Jamal shares his insights on the evolution of Android Studio, the importance of a strong developer community, and the features he's most proud of.


Can you tell us about your journey to becoming a part of the Android Studio team? What sparked your interest in Android development?

I have had an interest in programming at an early age especially since studying computer science in undergrad at the United States Military Academy (West Point), and in that time I have had an interest not just in the creation of software but also in the tools developers use to make software.

My interest in Android development came when I was preparing for my first job after my telecommunications & computer networks military career when I was joining a team at the Intel Corporation that worked with Google to build Android hardware products. I thought the best way to understand Google and mobile was to download the Android SDK and create my own app end to end. My first taste of Android was Froyo 2.2 using the Eclipse based Android Developer Tools IDE.

At Intel, I worked on creating the x86 based version of the Android Emulator and Emulator system image, and also a new Hypervisor that would accelerate the performance of the Android Emulator on x86 based laptops. After helping ship the Motorola Razr i (xt890) Android phone with Intel technology inside and x86 optimized apps on the device, I made the move to the Android team at Google. With my experience in developing Android apps, and shipping Android developer tools, the Android developer tools team was a natural fit.

Interestingly, I attended the Google I/O the year Android Studio was first revealed as an attendee, and the following year I was working on the team to bring Android Studio to its Beta release at the following years Google I/O.

What unique perspective or experience do you bring to the Android Studio team, and how does it influence your work?

Unique experiences I bring include:

  • Technical Translation - In my prior roles, I worked with highly technical teams, and learned how to take absurd technical concepts and present them to different audiences of different technical skill levels. And in the reverse, I worked with many non-technical customers and colleagues and learned how to translate their pain points into product opportunities solved with technical solutions and innovation.
  • User Empathy - Previously, I was a software developer, and I regularly like to code on small side projects, and really enjoy spending time with developers who use Android Studio. From first-hand experience and user engagement, I regularly bring in the voice of the user into the discussion from the inception of a product idea to the final stages of the release process.
  • UX Design Sense - In a previous career, I designed and created websites, and user interfaces for software. I developed an eye for good UX design and flows particularly in technical software products. These skills aid in complementing the dedicated UX design team in Android Studio, and aids in avoiding productivity pitfalls with poor product and UX flows.

In your opinion, what is the most impactful feature or improvement the Android team has introduced in recent years, and why?

It’s hard to nail down just one, but the top three are:

    1) product quality

    2) integration of Gemini and

    3) integrations with Crashlytics and Play with App Quality Insights.

The most impactful feature we worked on is product quality. We treat quality, especially the core code editing experience as a feature. If a developer can’t write a line of code and deploy it to a device, then everything else is secondary. Since Android is always evolving, it is an on-going effort but critical for the team to stay focused on.

On top of quality, thoughtful integration of Gemini into Android Studio is a real accelerate for app development. Our focus with AI is to make Android developers more productive, and make the harder tasks and toil easier. So from AI powered code completion, or built-in Gemini chat for Android app development, to enhancing existing tools with AI such as using Gemini to generate Jetpack Compose UI Previews, we are just at the beginning of leveraging AI to make Android app developers more productive.

Lastly, with App Quality Insights, it is now much easier for app developers to address the performance and quality issues found with Firebase Crashlytics and Android Vitals from Google Play. Surfacing these issues right next to source code and source control, make resolving issues much faster and intuitive.

How does the Android Studio team ensure that products or features meet the ever-changing needs of developers?

First step, the Android Studio team works hand-in-hand with the Android OS team so we strive to deliver developer tools in concert with new Android OS and API changes so developers are ready to adopt new Android platform capability into their apps. Then, we constantly review and prioritize developer feedback received via our issue tracker or via our bi-annaul developer survey we post on the Android Developers site. When we can, we sometimes engage with developers via various social media channels. And lastly, we regularly interview developers at various experience levels, and regions around the world in targeted User Research studies.

What advice would you give to aspiring Android developers who are just starting their journey?

  1. Start with a robust set of code labs and tutorials.
  2. Get inspired on the possibilities of Android and what you can build.
  3. Join the Android developer community:

Deploy with Confidence

Inspired by Jamal's journey and dedication to empowering developers? Explore the latest Android Studio features, including App Quality Insights, to improve your app's performance and address issues quickly.

Stay tuned

Don't miss the next installment of our "Meet the Android Studio Team" series, where we'll introduce you to another amazing member of our team and share their unique journey. Stay tuned for more!

Find Jamal Eason on LinkedIn and X.

Designing for Wear OS: Getting started with designing inclusive smartwatch apps

Posted by Matthew Pateman & Mallory Carroll (UX Research), and Josef Burnham (UX Design)

Smartwatches are becoming increasingly popular, with many people using them to stay connected, track their health, and control their devices. Watches enable people to get information at a glance and then take action. These quick and frequent interactions can help people get back to being present in their daily lives.

To help with the challenges of designing and building great watch experiences that work for all, we have created a series of videos. These videos cover a variety of topics starting with how to understand what people want from a smartwatch app. We cover how best to design for your target audience, and how to make the most of the watch’s form factor with a series of design principles. Lastly, we give you an introduction on how to approach product inclusion throughout the whole development lifecycle, and how this approach can help make your products better for all. If you’re interested in learning more, be sure to check out the videos below.


1. Introduction to UX Research & Product Inclusion on Wear OS

If you’re considering building a smartwatch app but don’t know how to begin, this video will help you get started. It shows how to uncover what people want from a smartwatch app, what a great Wear OS experience should look like, and how to ensure it addresses real needs of the people you are building for. Lastly, you’ll find out how to take an equity-focused approach when developing products, apps, and experiences.


2. Introduction to UX Design on Wear OS

Did you know that the average smartwatch interaction is approximately 5 seconds long? In this video you will learn how to design effective and engaging experiences for Wear OS. We’ll guide you on how to make the most out of these short watch interactions by covering key differences between mobile and smartwatch design, the importance of a glanceable user experience, and practical tips for designing for different Wear OS surfaces.


3. Introduction to Product Inclusion & Equity

We will introduce you to Product Inclusion and Equity, and how to approach it when designing for Wear OS. You will learn how to build for belonging and make products more accessible and usable by all.


4. Case Studies: Inclusion and Exclusion in Technology Design

Here you will see a series of case studies showing how product and design choices can be impactful on a personal, community, and systemic level. Designs can both be affirming and inclusive, or harmful and exclusionary to various people and communities. We’ll use some examples to highlight how important inclusion and equity considerations are when making product decisions.


5. Considerations for Community Co-Design

The last video in this series will give you an introduction into community co-design, a powerful approach that focuses on building solutions with, not for, historically marginalized communities. In community co-design, we engage with people based on identity, culture, community, and context. You’ll find out how to engage people and communities in a safe, respectful, and equity-centered way in product development.


Keep your eyes peeled for more updates from us as we continue to share and evolve our latest design thinking and practices, principles, and guidelines.

We also have many more resources to help get you started designing for Wear OS:

  • Find inspiring designs for different types of apps in our gallery
  • Interested in designing for multiple devices from TV’s to mobiles to tablets, check out our design hub
  • Access developer documentation for Wear OS

U-NEXT sees 1.5X increase in tablet installations after boosting support for large screens

Posted by the Android team

As the largest domestic streaming and digital content service in Japan, U-NEXT is always looking for new ways to connect its users to their favorite content. With just a single application, the platform hosts an extensive library of over 840,000 titles, ranging from movies, anime, and live streams to manga, magazines, and e-books.

Always looking for ways to improve its UX for its expanding user base, U-NEXT recently turned to the growing market of large screens and foldables, which includes devices like tablets and Chromebooks. Here, U-NEXT engineers saw an opportunity to create a better way to view content by focusing on what makes these devices special. For example, better multi-window support on larger screens could offer a more visually rich UX, while an improved foldable UX might better mimic the experience readers get with a traditional paperback.

But some users bumped into bugs while using the U-NEXT app with these larger and foldable viewing formats. For instance, the app would often hide important buttons when users opened U-NEXT on larger screens, forcing them to search the page for those navigation tools.

To optimize a UX overhaul to support these formats, the U-NEXT team tackled the project in two phases: remove any existing bugs, then add the features that its large-screen users would benefit from the most.

Headshot of Tomoya Miwa, Principal engineer at U-NEXT, smiling, with text quote 'We wanted to provide a better user experience using the advantages of large screens and foldables'

Clearing out the bugs

To fix the visibility issue for important in-app navigation buttons, U-NEXT engineers used a ConstraintLayout to set constraint barriers. These barriers prevented UI elements from being pushed off-screen while ensuring they’re always oriented correctly, no matter the screen size.

What’s more, U-NEXT’s application didn’t always display properly on larger screens. For example, pages displaying browsable video lists typically consist of a header and a curated list of content. These lists are supposed to occupy most of the space on the page. But on larger screens, the headers occupied the most on-screen real estate, making video content harder to navigate. The U-NEXT team resolved this issue by restricting the width of the header image on larger screens, giving the list more space and making browsing easier for large-screen users.

When users view books on the U-NEXT application, they can tap the screen to reveal a horizontal, scrollable wheel that lets them quickly and easily navigate their place in the text. But when users tried to access this navigation tool on Chromebooks, it wouldn’t appear on the page.

“Originally, we used SystemUiVisibility to determine whether a Chromebook was full-screen when a user tapped it,” said Tomoya Miwa, principal engineer at U-NEXT. “If SystemUiVisibility detected it wasn’t full screen, it’s supposed to display the controller. However, this listener isn’t called on when SystemUiVisibility is changed on Chromebooks, so the controller couldn’t be displayed.”

This meant U-NEXT had to change how they manage the visibility of the controller when SystemUiVisibility changes on Chromebooks. After this bug fix, the application would hide and display the controller at the same time when the screen is tapped on a Chromebook, resolving the issue for these users.

The last bug U-NEXT devs tackled was one that temporarily disrupted video when users folded their device during viewing. Switching device orientation while viewing content is supposed to be seamless, but the automatic deletion and recreation of the Activity during orientation changes caused videos to momentarily cut out.

Instead of letting Android handle these configuration changes automatically, U-NEXT developers changed the app to handle them manually. Using onConfigurationChanged(), the team overrode the change and prevented the UI elements from automatically being deleted and recreated, letting the app preserve them and prevent any viewing interruptions.

Making the most with more form factors

As part of its feature overhaul, U-NEXT replaced the traditional navigation bar with a navigation rail, which U-NEXT engineers anticipated would significantly improve the user experience. U-NEXT made this change in line with Android’s Do’s and Don't for Large Screens presentation from its recent Android Developer Summit, which provided best practices for developers optimizing for large screens.

“Reachability is an important factor when it comes to curating comfortable user experiences,” said Tomoya. “With a traditional, horizontal navigation bar, it makes it difficult to reach the buttons in the middle. With a navigation rail, it becomes much easier to reach these buttons.”

Image showing side by side rendering of UI before the implementation of the navigation rail on the left and after on the right

Next, the team enhanced support for two-page spreads when users viewed any e-books content on large screens. Apps typically display a single page when devices are oriented vertically on large screens and foldables. But because most large screens and foldables offer plenty of room for a double-page view, U-NEXT developers wanted to ensure users would always see a double-page spread whether in portrait or landscape orientation—even when the device was slightly folded.

The U-NEXT team also included some smaller, quality-of-life updates to make the user experience for large screens and foldables even better. These included enhancing the app’s compatibility with Compose by ensuring the Navigation component was consistent on every screen size, adding better support for Google Play in-app billing on large screens, and optimizing picture-in-picture viewing.

'The number of installations on tablets increased by more than 1.5x following the update for large screen devices.' — Tomoya Miwa, principal engineer at U-NEXT

Android support makes optimization easy

The U-NEXT team was surprised by how easy it was to optimize its app for large screens and foldable devices. Thanks to Android’s developer resources, U-NEXT was able to improve content viewing on its app, across devices, while also minimizing time and effort.

“It’s not that difficult,” said Tomoya. “Introducing the navigation was relatively easy, and foldable support in general is not hard as long as your app is compatible with basic screen rotation.”

Since updating the U-NEXT app to better support large screens, tablet installations have increased by 1.5X. Additionally, the watch time from users on large screen devices jumped by more than 10%.

Looking forward, the U-NEXT team plans to keep expanding its app’s large screen capabilities by enhancing mouse and keyboard compatibility, introducing list detail view to improve search functionality, adding greater support for tabletop mode, and implementing drag-and-drop features to make content sharing easier.

U-NEXT is excited to see Android add more resources to its large and expanding list of documentation, including the recently updated Material 3 library, which will further help support the growing number of users with large screen and foldable devices.

Start optimizing for large screens today

More people are using large screens, foldables, and other up-and-coming form factors. Learn how you can better support your users on these devices with examples from Android’s Large Screen Gallery.

Working Towards Android App Excellence

Posted by Jacob Lehrbaum Director of Developer Relations, Android

illustration of freckled hand over mobile phone with graphs

Great app experiences are great for business. In fact, nearly three-quarters of Android app users who leave a 5 star review on Google Play mention the quality of their experience with the app1; its speed, design, and usability. At Google, we want to help all developers achieve app excellence, and in turn help you drive user acquisition, retention, and monetization.

So what is “app excellence”? This may sound aspirational, but it is within reach for many apps. It starts with a laser focus on the user, and more specifically, with intuitive user experiences that get people to the main functionality of your app as quickly as possible — but that is just the beginning. Excellent apps are consistent across all of their screens and experiences. They perform well, no matter the device used. App excellence is achievable when all of the stakeholders who influence your app are invested in the experience of using your app.

One of the blockers that gets in the way of app excellence is shared or unclear accountability. Some of the primary measures of app quality, such as crashes and load times, are often seen as the responsibility of one group in the company, such as the engineering team. However, when we talk to best-in-class organizations2 about how they achieve app quality, it is clear that taking a cross-functional approach is key, with engineering, design, product, and business teams working toward a common goal.

So what are some internal best practices behind app excellence?

Make app quality a cross-organizational focus — not just an engineering concern

It’s a way easier conversation for me at the business end because I can say “these competitors’ apps are faster than ours; we need to reduce our load time down from 5 seconds to 4 seconds”.
Software engineer, x-platform app

App excellence helps drive business performance. New features are great, but if they slow down app start-up times or take up too much device space, people will eventually use your app less often or even delete it. Engineers who have built a company-wide focus on quality have often done so by quantifying the impact of quality issues on business performance, through:

  • Case studies showing the impact of responsiveness, APK size, start-up time, and memory usage on business KPIs. Here you can find practical case studies showcasing how developers such as Headspace and Duolingo achieved app excellence.
  • Benchmarking against competitor apps. Check out peer benchmarks and other metrics on the Google Play Console.

Organize teams around features and/or app user journey stages

Companies that organize teams around features — or stages in the user journey — are more likely to deliver consistent experiences across each operating system they support, bring new apps or features to market faster, and deliver a better app experience for all their customers. These teams are often cross-functional groups that span engineering, marketing, ux, and product — and are responsible for the success of a feature or user journey stage3 across all devices and platforms. In addition to better experiences and feature parity, this structure enables alignment of goals across functional areas while reducing silos, and it also helps teams hyper-focus on addressing specific objectives.

Feature organized team graph

Squads focused on business objectives heighten focus on the user.

Use the same devices your customers use

If a majority of your users are on a specific type of device, you can build empathy for their experience if you use the same phone, tablet or smart watch as your primary device. This is especially relevant for senior leadership in your organization who make decisions that impact the day-to-day experience of millions of users. For example, Duolingo has built this into their company DNA. Every Duolingo employee — including their CEO — either uses exclusively or has access to an entry level Android device to reflect a significant portion of their user base.

A user-centric approach to quality and app excellence is essential to business growth. If you are interested in learning how to achieve app excellence, read our case studies with practical tips, and sign up to attend our App Excellence Summit by visiting the Android app excellence webpage.

In subsequent blog posts, we will dig deep into two drivers of excellent app experiences: app performance and how it is linked to user behavior, and creating seamless user experiences across devices. Sign up to the Android developer newsletter here to be notified of the next installment, and get news and insights from the Android team.

Notes

  1. Internal Google Play data, 2021. ↩

  2. Google App Quality Research, 2021 ↩

  3. The series of steps each user takes as they interact with your app is referred to as the “user journey.” Examples of user journey stages include installs, onboarding, engagement, and retention ↩

Expand your app beyond mobile to reach Android users at large

Posted by Sameer Samat, Vice President, Platforms & Ecosystems

dark theme graphic illustration with geometric shapes and Android 2019 logo

From day one, we designed Android to be a flexible, adaptive platform.

Most people picture a smartphone when they think of Android, but Android also powers an amazing number of large-screen devices. In fact, there are more than 175 million Android tablets with the Google Play store,1 making Android tablets a vital form factor for Google and our OEM partners today. Android apps also run on Chrome OS laptops, and the number of monthly active users who enabled Android apps grew 250% in just the last year.2

Here at Google, we’re excited to see how you can take advantage of large-screen formats - including Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab S6, the upcoming Lenovo™ Smart Tab M8 with Google Assistant, the upcoming Samsung Fold, and other devices launching this week at IFA. Our OEM partners are building experiences that help users every day:

image of two quotes

From the start, Android was designed as a platform that could handle multiple screen sizes. Over the years, we’ve continued to add functionality for developers to accommodate new devices and form factors.

  • We started with a phone. Developers could write Android apps that would work on phones of all sizes, all over the world. Part of what made this work was Android’s resource and layout system, which enabled applications to smoothly adapt to different screen sizes.
  • In Android 3.0 Honeycomb, we added support for tablets. In particular, capabilities like Fragments allow you to create applications that work across vastly different form factors.
  • Android 7 Nougat brought multi-window and multi-display capabilities, including the ability to drag-and-drop across apps. Meanwhile, Chrome OS added the capability to run Android applications on laptops. With some adjustments to handle different inputs and windowing dynamics, you could now reach app users in a desktop-style environment.
Android’s layout system helps applications smoothly resize and adjust their layout interactively.

Android’s layout system helps applications smoothly resize and adjust their layout interactively.

  • Now, in Android 10, we’ve made even more enhancements for development on large screens. We’ve improved multi-window capabilities, making it easier to use multiple apps in parallel. We also continued improving multi-display support, enabling more multi-monitor use cases. And we made it easy for you to experiment and test new form factors by adding dedicated emulator for foldables as well as publishing a foldables guide.

By optimizing your app to take advantage of different form factors, developers have an opportunity to deliver richer, more engaging experiences to millions of users on larger screens. And if you don’t have access to physical devices, the Android Emulator supports all of the form factors mentioned above, from Chrome OS to phones and tablets.


Developers of apps like Mint, Evernote, and Asphalt are just a few who have seen success from taking their existing APK to larger screens.

image of a single quote from Damien Marchi, VP of Marketing at Gameloft

To learn more about optimizing your Android apps for richer experiences on tablets, Chrome OS laptops, foldables, and more, join us at the Android Developer Summit on October 23-24 — either in person or via the livestream — or check out our recap videos on YouTube.

Sources:

[1] The number of tablets only accounts for devices that have the Google Play Store installed (for example, this excludes tablets in China); the actual number of tablets capable of running Android applications is much larger.

[2] Google Internal Data, March 2018 to March 2019.

New UI tools and a richer creative canvas come to ARCore

Posted by Evan Hardesty Parker, Software Engineer

ARCore and Sceneform give developers simple yet powerful tools for creating augmented reality (AR) experiences. In our last update (version 1.6) we focused on making virtual objects appear more realistic within a scene. In version 1.7, we're focusing on creative elements like AR selfies and animation as well as helping you improve the core user experience in your apps.

Creating AR Selfies

Example of 3D face mesh application

ARCore's new Augmented Faces API (available on the front-facing camera) offers a high quality, 468-point 3D mesh that lets users attach fun effects to their faces. From animated masks, glasses, and virtual hats to skin retouching, the mesh provides coordinates and region specific anchors that make it possible to add these delightful effects.

You can get started in Unity or Sceneform by creating an ARCore session with the "front-facing camera" and Augmented Faces "mesh" mode enabled. Note that other AR features such as plane detection aren't currently available when using the front-facing camera. AugmentedFace extends Trackable, so faces are detected and updated just like planes, Augmented Images, and other trackables.

// Create ARCore session that support Augmented Faces for use in Sceneform.
public Session createAugmentedFacesSession(Activity activity) throws UnavailableException {
  // Use the front-facing (selfie) camera.
  Session session = new Session(activity,  EnumSet.of(Session.Feature.FRONT_CAMERA));
  // Enable Augmented Faces.
  Config config = session.getConfig();
  config.setAugmentedFaceMode(Config.AugmentedFaceMode.MESH3D);
  session.configure(config);
  return session;
}

Animating characters in your Sceneform AR apps

Another way version 1.7 expands the AR creative canvas is by letting your objects dance, jump, spin and move around with support for animations in Sceneform. To start an animation, initialize a ModelAnimator (an extension of the existing Android animation support) with animation data from your ModelRenderable. 

void startDancing(ModelRenderable andyRenderable) {
    AnimationData data = andyRenderable.getAnimationData("andy_dancing");
    animator = new ModelAnimator(data, andyRenderable);
    animator.start();
}

Solving common AR UX challenges in Unity with new UI components

In ARCore version 1.7 we also focused on helping you improve your user experience with a simplified workflow. We've integrated "ARCore Elements" -- a set of common AR UI components that have been validated with user testing -- into the ARCore SDK for Unity. You can use ARCore Elements to insert AR interactive patterns in your apps without having to reinvent the wheel. ARCore Elements also makes it easier to follow Google's recommended AR UX guidelines.

ARCore Elements includes two AR UI components that are especially useful:

  • Plane Finding - streamlining the key steps involved in detecting a surface
  • Object Manipulation - using intuitive gestures to rotate, elevate, move, and resize virtual objects

We plan to add more to ARCore Elements over time. You can download the ARCore Elements app available in the Google Play Store to learn more.

Improving the User Experience with Shared Camera Access

ARCore version 1.7 also includes UX enhancements for the smartphone camera -- specifically, the experience of switching in and out of AR mode. Shared Camera access in the ARCore SDK for Java lets users pause an AR experience, access the camera, and jump back in. This can be particularly helpful if users want to take a picture of the action in your app.

More details are available in the Shared Camera developer documentation and Java sample.

Learn more and get started

For AR experiences to capture users' imaginations they need to be both immersive and easily accessible. With tools for adding AR selfies, animation, and UI enhancements, ARCore version 1.7 can help with both these objectives.

You can learn more about these new updates on our ARCore developer website.