Google Android - The Android Log

An interesting thread started in the Google Android Developers group, why hasn’t Google provided a User Interface Guide for Android? Is it up to the Android community to write these type of documents? Until recently, Free-Software has not had a celebrated history of creating outstanding GUI experiences. What will the Android experience be like if every developer has their own way of presenting user information and menu choices?

It can be a serious challenge to get hobyists and part-time free-software developers to devote precious time to the creation of style-guides and interface documents. Plus, how would a hobyist Android developer find a testing environment to study user interaction and gather feedback?

For at least six years, companies including Sun and Novell have invested heavily in improving the usability of the Gnome User Interface. The leaps and bounds that the Gnome UI has made since then is very impressive but it took money from large, established companies to create standards guides, provide testing labs and quality-control specialists. In 2001, Linux Weekly News interviewed Calum Benson about the work he was doing as a Sun employee working on the Gnome Usability Group in it’s early days.

The other critical thing is to ensure you don’t *have* to know about all the ways of doing something to complete the whole task. This problem showed up in the study with respect to panel customization, and especially fonts– there’s no one place in GNOME 1.4 to change all the fonts on your desktop, you have to know at least three different places to go.

So yes, it’s important that the key features on a desktop are well signposted, especially if you’re new to that particular environment. But while more advanced features or quicker ways of doing the same thing may not become apparent until you reach a higher level of competence and start experimenting and exploring, they still need to be designed to be
as easy to use as possible.

What kind of documentation is Android missing? Here is a small sample of similar user-interface documents that Microsoft provides independent Windows Mobile application developers.

• Accessibility and Ergonomic Guidelines - Outlines the guidelines for developing an accessible user interface.
• Home and Today Screen Guidelines - Describes the information the user might want instant access to, and ways to display it when the component is selected.
• Mobile Web Site Design Overview - Some general guidelines on how to optimize your Web site design for Internet Explorer Mobile.
• Navigation Guidelines - Describes the various views (list view, summary view, and edit view). and provides recommendations for using them.
• Screen Rotation Guidelines - Describes practical approaches you can take to create screen layouts that accommodate portrait, landscape, and square.
• Soft Key and Menu Guidelines - Describes the role that Soft Keys play in the user interface, and how to properly implement them in your applications.
• Usability Guidelines - Provides a checklist to help you confirm that your application’s user interface meets usability requirements.
• User Interface Control Guidelines - Provides guidelines for user interface (UI) controls.
• User Interface Text Guidelines - Provides guidelines for designing user interface text.

What do you think? Is this a deal-breaker for your mobile applications or is it a non-issue? 

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