By Roman Nurik, Design Advocate
Android 5.0 brings in material design as the new design system for the platform and system apps. Consumers will soon start getting Android 5.0 and they’re already seeing glimpses of material design with apps like Google Play Newsstand, Inbox by Gmail and Tumblr. Meanwhile, developers now have the Android 5.0 SDK, along with AppCompat for backward compatibility. And designers now have access to Photoshop, Illustrator and Sketch templates. All this means that now—yes now!—is the time to start implementing material design in your Android apps. Today, let’s talk about what implementing material design really boils down to.
Below, you’ll find a material design checklist that you can use to mark progress as you implement the new design system. The checklist is divided into 4 key sections based on the 4 key aspects of material design.
If you include a good chunk of the items in the checklist below, especially the ones indicated as signature elements, and follow traditional Android design best practices (i.e. these, these, and things we discussed on ADiA), you’ll be well on your way to material design awesomeness!
android:elevation
android:translationZ
android:clipToPadding=false
ListView
ScrollView
android:colorPrimary
android:colorAccent
android
android:colorPrimaryDark
android:statusBarColor
Window.setStatusBarColor
Toolbar
FragmentTransaction
android:selectableItemBackground
android:selectableItemBackgroundBorderless
RippleDrawable
<ripple>
ViewAnimationUtils
AnimatedStateListDrawable
android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
android:contentInsetStart
ViewPager
DrawerLayout
More and more apps from Google and across the Google Play ecosystem will be updating with material design soon, so expect Winter 2014 to be a big quarter for design on Android. For more designer resources on material design, check out the DesignBytes series. For additional developer resources, check the Creating Apps with Material Design docs!