if you've been on the internet in the last couple of months especially if
you've been looking up news about the Nexus 6 or Android 5.0 Lollipop then you
may have encountered the term material design and found yourself wondering what
the devil does that even mean in a nutshell it's new Visual and interactive
design concept from Google that contrary to how you might initially interpret it
has nothing to do with this and isn't
really what I thought it would be either I thought it would be like some kind of
philosophy where everything needed to look like a real world material like
titanium and trees or no it's not that at all instead material is more like
this hypothetical material derp out of
which all the UI elements buttons icons and themes are constructed and
constructed is key here because material and I'm going to keep finger quotesing
that must behave according to a number of guidelines set out in Google's
material design spec sheet a living document that was created to guide
artists to to make a more unified look
for lollipop and presumably other Google products in the future all right then
lonus so what are these guidelines you say well first much like construction
paper material can come in many different shapes when you look at it
head-on but while it's almost flat it is
solid so it does have a little bit of depth to it all material is exactly 1 DP
thick even when content is displayed on top of it which is not the same as one
pixel thick by the way to allow for consistent appearance on high and low
resolution displays now because material
has that depth some more rules apply while it can change shape grow shrink
and be moved and rotated along any axis
it's solid so you can't click or see through it two pieces can't occupy the
same space at the same time in the same way that my hands can't occupy the same
space at the same time one must be above the other and it can't pass through
other material it also can't bend or F hold all right lonus this is starting to
sound like a bunch of arbitrary hipster design crap to me why does any of this
matter well believe it or not design philosophies like this matter more than
you'd think because material design extends much further than just rules for
what app layouts and buttons look like it's a whole set of guidelines for how
we interact with our devices including things like realistic movement
animations which combined with other techniques for drawing the user's eye to
the correct part of the screen enables more natural interaction there are also
color suggestions so every app on your phone or tablet can have its own unique
visual identity yet be part of a greater hole and even advice for developers
about how to make sure their product is accessible for users with disabilities
so while I unfortunately cannot stand here and go into as much depth as I
could on a topic like this I hope it was enough to explain the importance of
material designed as a toolkit for app developers to help make the Android
ecosystem feel well like just that more of an ecosystem as opposed to an
Eclectic collection of random functionalities all bolted together and
then stuck into your pocket speaking of an Eclectic collection linda.com is the
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