UX Enhancements in Android N
At Google’s IO16 keynote recently, VP of Engineering (Android) Dave Burke announced some improvements that are coming to Android N, including some very nice UX enhancements.
Recent Apps Screen
According to Google’s user research, 99% of the time, users only select apps from the last 7 entries on the Recent Apps screen.
In Android N, Google will automatically remove apps in the list that you haven’t used in a while, making it easier to access the app that you’re looking for.
Based on popular demand, they’ve also added a clear all button at the top right corner.
Quick Switch
You can now switch between the current app you’re using and the previous app you were in by double clicking on the recents button from anywhere.
The user flips from the call she’s currently in to the calendar app she was using by double tapping on the recents button on the bottom right.
Multi Window
In Android N, Google redesigned their windows management system and introduces the ability to display more than one app at a time through two new windowing modes:
Split Screen
Split screen is designed for tablets and phones, and is pretty simple to use.
In the example below, the user is watching a video on Youtube. He longtaps on the recents button to launch multi window, and select Google Keep from there.
Picture in Picture
Picture in picture is designed for Android TV and is a great way to let you keep watching a content piece while you perform another task.
While watching a live TV program on retro gaming, a user can do a search for PacMan in the Play Store and install it while the live content continues playing in the background.
Notifications
Today, over half of the notifications shown originate from messaging applications. Google is making some nice changes to optimize for this use case.
There is now a direct reply feature which quickly lets you reply to a message from the notification alert. User do not need to launch the app to fire off the quick response, which can be a real time saver.
Added Control
N gives users more control over notifications: you can now long-tap a notification to change its visibility.
For example, you can block notifications from a given app or set them to show only silently. So now users can choose to only see notifications are important for them.
Support for New Emoji Standard
In N, Google will roll out support for the new Unicode 9 emoji standard, and will also refresh their existing emojis, introducing more human-looking glyphs with skintones support.
In addition to Unicode 9’s 72 new emoji glyphs, Google is continuing their effort on gender representation by introducing custom emoji representing women in professional roles. Like other companies that have created custom emoji in the past, Google is using Zero-Width-Joiners to chord together sequences of existing emoji.
You can watch the full live stream of the keynote here and view the schedule of other designed related sessions on Google Design’s Medium blog.
This article was originally written posted on my design blog.
