How to create an app for Android
You have an app idea, you’ve picked the right design software, and now it’s time to get started. Here are the design principles, examples, and resources that you need to design a beautiful app for your Android users.
One of our favourite questions to ask when interviewing designers is, “which brand’s overall design do you admire most?” Nine times out of ten, Apple’s name comes first.
Many designers are iOS users and prefer the look and feel of iOS apps. Yet Android devices represent 42% of the US market and 71% of the worldwide market. Hard to ignore.
Even though you technically don’t have to design differently for Android and iOS, it’s good practice to adopt fundamental Android design principles. Making your app “Android friendly” is an excellent way to make your app engaging and intuitive to Android users.
Google already provides the Material design system, a very detailed set of visual guidelines and components that you can use — but following them too closely might end up making your app a little generic. This article provides high-level principles, design examples from some of the most popular apps on Google Play, and resources to help you design an Android app that’s beautifully unique.
Fundamental design elements & style
Android Navigation
The Android navigation bar is probably the most notable difference between Android and iOS apps. Contrary to iOS, Android has a built-in bottom bar that can be physically integrated into the device or not, always showing the Back, Home, and Overview buttons.
Another important difference is that, unlike iOS, Android offers three types of top-level navigation:
- Tabs — When you have two or more destinations.
2. Bottom Navigation Bar — When you have between two and five destinations.
3. Navigation Drawer — When you have more than five destinations (talk about edge swipe).
Android Style
While iOS relies on flat design, Android prefers material design where shadows, edge tint, layers, and rounded corners play a crucial role.
This is what drives the design of some of the UI elements that are specific to Android, such as:
Backdrops, used to display contextual and actionable content on top of regular app screens.
Floating action buttons, a CTA (call to action) that often appears at the bottom right of the screen.
Form input fields typically use box shadows or backgrounds. In terms of text style, Android’s default font is Roboto and you’ll notice in examples below that Android apps tend to display larger and bolder text than iOS apps.
Android Alerts
Similar to its app navigation bar, Android offers more options than iOS when it comes to displaying important/urgent messages.
- Snackbars — Can be ignored, preferred for low priority messages.
2. Banners — Require an action, preferred for medium priority messages.
3. Dialogs — Block the app and require action, preferred for high-priority messages. Also referred to as modals in other design systems.
Responsive for Android
One of the most challenging aspects of Android app development is that they require compatibility with a seemingly infinite number of screen sizes, due to the vast number of current and legacy devices in circulation. The commonly accepted screen size is 360dp х 640dp, but if you design for this specific screen size and ignore others, many of your users will end up seeing something different from what you intended — from the smallest mobile viewports up large televisions running off an Android box.
To make your Android app fully responsive, we recommend designing with an editor that relies on relative, flex positioning, rather than absolute positioning.
How popular brands design for Android vs iOS
There’s nothing like examples to better understand how these design differences apply.
Doordash’s app design
The beloved food delivery app does a great job presenting a large number of options while keeping the design clean and simple. Good design plus good food? Sign me up!
Medium’s app design
Now one of the most popular blogging platforms in the world, Medium’s intuitive design finds its power in the details. And that includes the way they differentiate their Android vs iOS design.
Lyft’s app design
A popular alternative to Uber in the US, Lyft integrates advanced features like group rides seamlessly. So whether you’re an Android or an iOS user, it will get you where you need to be in no time.
YouTube’s app design
Yes, YouTube is part of the Google family, but its design is thoughtful regardless of the device you’re on. And even though they have a pretty loose way of enforcing Material design guidelines across their portfolio, when it comes to designing apps for Android it’s interesting to see how Google itself does it.
The best resources to design Android apps
More than a resource: Material Design’s website is the Android app designers’ bible. You’ll find all the guidelines, components, themes, and tools you need to design your app the right way, and optimize your chances of success on Google Play.
Hundreds of free, beautiful fonts for you to pick from.
A comprehensive kit put together by Material Design to help you get started with your Android app.
With their impressive library of screens from all your favourite apps, Mobbin is one of the best tools you can find out there. And no, it’s not stealing. It’s inspirational.
From Android app designer to Android app builder
Yes, designing mobile apps for Android or iOS requires a lot of effort and skills. But coding isn’t one of them anymore. With new-gen visual editors, also called no-code app builders, you can now design custom, native apps without coding. Designware is one of them, and it’s free to try. And whatever you design for Android can be easily released to iOS, Windows, macOS, or the web as well.
You don’t need to hire developers to code and maintain different app builds anymore. Instead, you can design and update different versions of your apps in the same editor, saving a lot of time and money in the process. If you have an app project and aren’t sure where to start, feel free to reach out. We’re always happy to help creatives bring their ideas to life.
