Well there you have it, Google has finally updated its developers website to reflect the design changes that it set in place exactly this time last year. Google’s unveiling of Android L, now known as Lollipop for Android 5.0 and 5.1, brought about a completely new design language and massive changes to the navigation structure as many have come to know it. This new design was called Material Design and its unveiling seemed to be as much of a secret to the rest of Google’s development teams as it was to everyone else given that it’s taken so long to refine many of Google’s core apps and services to meet with these requirements.
It’s possible that Google had been saving some of these big changes for their big Polymer Web UI tools for developers to start rolling out in final form so as to debut current examples of work created with the tools. Either way the Google Developers website, including all the sub sites like Nexus factory images, have been totally overhauled using the Material Design guidelines for websites. This includes clearly marked titles, clean text, colors for individual sections or pages and even optional components like a dedicated left-hand side navigation bar. Things are more clearly labeled now and easier to find with different sections on pages in a neatly organized card fashion where it makes sense.
This update shows Google’s commitment to its users overall experience and aims to deliver the finest the web has to offer, even in a simple informational page. Google has been working on tightening up the ship over the last couple of years and has really doubled down its efforts in the last year. At the helm of much of this design is the famous Matias Duarte who debuted Material Design at last year’s Google I/O, while other Google staff unveiled Android M at this year’s I/O with a new focus on design and continuity between apps and services. Since services are at the core of the Google experience it makes sense for Google to focus on the developers behind the apps and websites that complete the experience on Android, and it’s good to see Google finally getting everything in order.