Material Design and Android 5.0 Lollipop. Two things the world of Android touting individuals are surely eager to get their hands on. For this to happen, there are a few things that need to go down. One of which is actually getting a hold of a handset that has Android 5.0 Lollipop installed on it. For the time being, that will only be the Nexus 6 and the Nexus 9, which have yet to make it to consumers. The other part of that statement refers to Material Design, which we’ll see as part of the the design elements and UI changes inside of applications. This will be achieved much faster so long as developers are making the needed tweaks to get their apps looking up to date with Google’s design guidelines.
Holo is still the current design for most apps, but users(myself included)are so excited over material design and all the beautiful visuals and animations that come along with it that we can’t wait for the apps we use on a daily basis to get an updated, fresh face look. Google wants to help developers push their apps forward in the design department as quickly as they can, and to streamline things they have created a “Material Design Checklist” for developers to mark off what they may need to do or have already done to get to the point where their apps have the full Material makeover.
The checklist consists of just what you’d expect from a checklist of things, steps to reach a certain goal, broken off into nice little sections pertaining to each separate element of the Material Design aspects. The descriptions are accompanied by some nice little GIF(hard ‘G’ for life)animations which help to illustrate to developers how things should look if everything is implemented to Google’s specifications. Bold Print Aesthetics are a big focus, which includes using a Primary color and an Accent color for the app. Other elements to be followed off the list are things like Tangible Surfaces made up of multiple layers on top of each other, with shadows being cast from each layer onto the one below it, and a smooth animation transition that can easily denote the layers of each piece of the user interface design. If you’re a developer, give the checklist a glance and see if it doesn’t help things in the process of updating your UI.
