Las Vegas — When Google first demonstrated its most publicized Ice Cream Sandwich last year, the company promised that the update would unify the Android experience between tablets and smartphones. Today at CES, the search engine behemoth took another leap towards getting its device partners and developers in line, unveiling a new site called: Android Design, that, starting with the newest version of Android, aims to provide a style and etiquette guide for a more consistent experience across different apps, devices, and—in future—versions of the operating system.
At CES, Matias Duarte, Google’s director of Android user experience is a man who loves a challenge, revealed the next step in that direction. In short, he is the man delegated with making sure Android looks, feels, and performs as smoothly as possible. And it is not an easy job. While conversing with editors of technology news site–The Verge, Matias mentioned that Google has developed an Ice Cream Sandwich style guide for device manufactures and developers.
“Craftily designing an open mobile operating system–and doing it really well–that has never happened before in human history,” Duarte said in a statement. He is visibly excited, seemingly up to the task when I note how big the challenge is. I have done the closed thing before, he says, referring to his days at Palm working on the webOS operating system. And I would like to think I did it well.
Amazingly, the site starts off smoothly, empowering users with a top-level view of how Google “touched nearly every pixel of the system” when rewriting Android to create 4.0, and touches on three general areas where developers should be focusing their efforts for design and style when building new applications, according to Duarte. Their wording is reminiscent of the “magical”, beautiful but also obscure, descriptions you often think of in connection with Apple, or Disney: “Enchant Me,” “Simplify My Life,” and “Make Me Amazing.”
According to Android Developer Blog, the guidelines will offer developers in-depth instructions where developers can “learn about principles, building blocks, and patterns for creating world-class Android user interfaces.” In addition to laying out the building blocks and design principles of ICS, the guide offers advice for buildings apps with details on suggested iconography, patters, colors, typography, and writing styles.
Theoretically, it will arm developers to better grasp just how the Android team thinks about layout and implementation, while simultaneously providing suggestions to interaction designers on how to maintain visual integrity. Basically, it will help both first-time developers and Android experts make apps look less crappy.
“We have not really had a style guide,” Duarte stated. “We have not really given you a lot of guidance on how to migrate your application from a phone, perhaps, to a tablet. We have done so only by example.”
In fact, this initiative will empower manufacturers the freedom to tinker with the Android interface has long been a hallmark of Google’s OS, but that flexibility has resulted in an inconsistent user experience and app quality across devices as OEMs.
As such, Android is an open platform with no centralized hub that sanctions each application before making it available to the public, developers are not required to use the new set of guidelines. Duarte said the guides are intended as developer resources.
Finally, it is about concluding what Duarte started with the latest software release. As the biggest Android overhaul to date, it is Android’s true coming-out party, what the team considers the first true version of what the Android OS can be.
“This is the second segment of our Ice Cream Sandwich launch,” he says. As this site goes up, I can feel like it is finished. Like ICS is truly complete.”