What an engagingly written interview with a thoughtful designer. Two points stand out:
1. Unlike Apple, which apparently eschews formal user research, Google relied on "ethnographic research" to shape Android 4.0.
2. In between Apple's hyper-realistic UI and Microsoft's Spartan aesthetic, Google is trying to find a middle ground in Android 4.0 that facilitates new approaches and new experiences.
From the screenshots alone, it's hard to tell what it actually will be like to use Android 4.0. But it's great to see that Google is thinking so deeply about user experience.
> 1. Unlike Apple, which apparently eschews formal user research, Google relied on "ethnographic research" to shape Android 4.0.
I definitely think this idea has began to take a life of its own so to speak. I've read that Apple doesn't do Usability testing, doesn't do market research or user research. All of the points can be summed up with the "Apple knows best" idea. But, I'm sure Apple does user research - just not with a consultancy, or by asking users what they want. They focus on users' behaviour and their needs and incorporate it into their vision.
I don't think Google's core approach this time around is that much different from (what I presume is) Apple's approach. Google is using their ethnographic research to figure out what users do and what users need. I'd wager that Apple's own 'research' has focused on that all along.
It's quite a stretch to call Apple's UI "hyper-realistic". The core interface and main apps (safari, mail, phone, messages, camera) mostly consist of non-textured gradients. There's a hint of glass on the lockscreen and a fabric texture used at the "edges" of the UI (in the notification center and multitasking tray) and that's about it. If anything, it looks like they're aping Apple with the icon animations, text selection, abandoning their menu buttons and attention to system fonts.
i wouldnt claim that apple's UI is hyper realistic, but there are parts of its design which are intended to be realistic. sometimes good, sometime bad. a few examples:
Well, you're lumping a lot of things under the term "UI".
As a rule, Apple minimizes these kinds of things in the core interface and often moves quickly to reduce them as new features become common knowledge. For example, the "dock" in the original iPhone looked like a speaker grill - it was probably a useful convention to denote to people that had never used OSX that it was a special section at the bottom of the phone/screen. Now it's a glassy reflective surface that subtly denotes the dock area and nicely borders the screen (much more subtly than the ICS dock, IMO). The scrollbars in OSX were once colorful and rounded, but steadily and gradually became flatter, grayer, and then basically invisible. I wouldn't be surprised if the now prevalent "fabric" pattern sees a similar fate.
Apple tends to make the metaphors glaringly obvious and keep them around in a certain class of very simple apps (the compass and calculator fall under this). It's funny that Duarte mentioned wood because Apple nerds have been arguing about the wood trim in Garageband (a spinoff from the sleek, German designed Logic app) since it launched. For power users, these things are a stupid distraction, but for the %90 of the population that is boggled by the idea of using a completely new class of software, they denote that this is fun, easy-to-use software. Google, who've made plenty of great products that have gone relatively unused, could probably learn a few things here.
There's a certain logic to the anti-skeutomorph thing, but it gets weird when it leads to dismissing Apple offhandedly. Mastery of these metaphors is a good part of the reason Apple are where they are today. It's amazing how consistent these textures, gestures and animations are across three platforms (and how smoothly they reached this point) while the other platforms are having identity crises.
I should add that I'm enormously tempted to get the Galaxy Nexus, so please take this as pro-Apple, not anti-Google.
Interesting how things change. Just a few years back it would have been impossible to associate the word 'spartan' with any tech company other than Google, let alone Microsoft (which more often than not ended up alongside 'gaudy' and 'tacky'. Like this, unfortunately: http://youtu.be/-F_ke3rxopc)
I couldn't disagree more. I think the visual execution is great, and really cohesive with the rest of Google's re-design. I also prefer the black/dark themes. I imagine it has the functional benefit of using less power on OLED screens, as well.
But the visual stuff is almost beside the point. I've been an Android user for a couple of years now, and the sense I always got was that the OS was very engineer-driven, with plenty of interesting features piled on, but no real sense of user experience. Duarte is clearly bringing a lot of focus on UX, by optimizing real usage patterns, making them fast and delightful.
I'm actually pleasantly surprised at where Android is going.
I heard rumours that google was doing 2 things in particular to deal with the version fragmentation issue for developer's sake:
* Enforcing a minimum hardware level, eg opengl es2 acceleration (eg no more cheap&slow androids that do the brand no favours)
* Making it so that software updates cannot by stymied by hardware makers and carriers any more, so that as soon as google makes a new version, anyone can update to it without needing to root their device.
I don't know about the first one, but at Google IO they announced they were getting all of their partners (major carriers & hardware manufacturers) to agree to support any new device with software updates for 18 months. They hinted it would be required to be a Google certified device.
I hope so. It's kind of aggravating to be able to download and install the SDK in a few minutes but not to install the OS on either of the two phones or the tablet I have.
I wish more than anything they would try to stop manufacturer customization. I recently learned that the "dialer" app on my Motorola Atrix is not the default Android one, which might explain some of its really odd behaviors that just drive me insane. The home screen, even the browser is modified (at least the icon).
There's a difference between allowing customization by the user (good) and by the manufacturer/carrier (bad). Users will pick apps they like, by definition. Vendors will pick apps just to be different. That's sort of OK if the choice is really better (e.g. bundling Swype on my Epic). But they get it wrong more often than not.
Example: samsung wrote their own camera app. For reasons that are clear only to them, it refuses to work (literally, it pops up a message box and exits) if the battery charge is less than 15%. I'm sure they thought they were "conserving" battery (because clearly they know better than me how I want to spend my battery energy). But of course the real effect is that this is a $250 phone that won't take pictures in the evening. And this is routine in the market, Samsung is hardly the only offender. That's the disaster Google is hoping to avoid.
I'm unsure about the first one, but the second one is no way can be true. Diplomatic problems aside, it's technically impossible. Google don't write the drivers for those phones, manufacturers/carriers do, so how in hell can Google sneak in alone without drivers?
Sounds like Duarte is bringing much needed focus on user experience.
I thought Honeycomb was garish and the futuristicity forced. This tones it down quite a bit, but also moves away from Apple's kitschy skeuomorphism. I like it.
Everything Matias said today about iOS is true but the bottom line is he's been on the job for a year, ICS was his baby and yet from what I gather it still stutters like Porky Pig in a helicopter.
Optimize your fonts and visual style all day long but at the end of the day the magic of the OS is dispelled if the OS doesn't respond to input properly. Jellybean I guess...
Not sure about ICS, but Gingerbread on the Galaxy S2 is completely stutter-free. It took a while for Android to achieve this: I used 10 Android (company-)devices in the last 12 month, and even the Nexus S with Gingerbread would sometimes show some lag when scrolling through large lists. It was otherwise a very responsive device, and the lag is hardly noticeable unless you directly compare it with an iphone or an Galaxy S2. But there was some lag.
The Galaxy S2 is perfectly smooth. I guess it's the combination of the multithreaded garbage collector that came with 2.3, the dual core processor, and a very fine Android implementation from Samsung that solved the problem.
I also think that Android does benefit a lot from every MB additional RAM, because it gives both the application scheduler and the garbage collector more room to manage app lifecycles.
While this is a fair criticism of Android as a whole, the lead designer has very little control over the performance of the OS. I'm sure that all the lagginess in Android bothers him at least as much as it bothers you.
Imagine how good Andoid could be if Google just built one phone. Just one frickin phone with incredible people like Duarte working on it.
All wood behind one arrow.
Yeah, it's not their general strategy. They are a software company commoditising hardware etc etc. But cannibalising that strategy could really make Android as great a product as Google Search.
I mean no other Android phones. Because people like Duarte and others who actually care about making a great product will bust their asses off to do it, and then Samsung and HTC will come along and spray their crapware all over it.
You get the effect you want already, there's been a number of "official Google phones": the G1, the Nexus One, the Nexus S, and soon the Galaxy Nexus. These are Google-only, no-crapware phones, designed to showcase the newest Android offerings in the best light.
With iOS, there's only the one blessed option. You get one new phone a year. If it's a feature-bump like the 3GS or 4S, then that's what you get.
With Android, you not only get the Google-branded Official Phones, but you also get an entire ecosystem of devices to suit any taste. Want a hardware keyboard? You got it. 4.5-inch screens too big for you? Not a problem, plenty of options.
Plenty of problems. Apps never look quite right, because there are too many different resolutions, and maybe or maybe not have this or that button. With engineering resources split over so many products and conpanies, you don't get the best designers and the best hardware people working together on the same device. With all these "enhancements" from the OEMs, upgrading the foundation is more expensive to port and takes longer.
As a side note, I'm convinced that one of the reasons WP7 is not gaining any traction is because it doesn't have the "one phone." They don't have a halo product that draws attention to the OS.
It would also destroy their market share. I don't know if a price has been announced for the Nexus Prime yet, but for the sake of argument let's assume it's slightly more than the SGS II. Most people aren't willing to pay that much for a phone, no matter how awesome it might be. In addition they'd lose the customers who came to Android because they wanted a smaller phone, or a phone with keyboard or a phone that was IP67 certified or any of the other options that the Nexus Prime doesn't offer. I'm sure Google have considered the options and are much happier with a good product used by lots of people over a great product used by few people.
Android and iOS are looking more and more similar as time goes on. Android copies iOS... iOS copies Android. Sometimes Android is ahead with features, sometimes iOS. Eventually both OS's will reach a point of maturity with relatively equal features but with a distinct look and personality.
It has built-in sharing functions (e.g. Twitter vs Email vs ...), but it doesn't have Share, or any other general sharing extension point. This is why some iOS fans think Twitter integration is a big deal (and why most Android fans are very confused when they hear that).
I'm not sure whether the restriction is design-driven or business-driven (or both). It may just be an expression of Apple's preference for minimizing options and customizations. Alternatively, it might be that Apple wants to control the sharing menu "real estate" and require Google, Facebook and others to make individual deals to get a spot. Twitter might know (since they should have first-hand experience with the integration interface).
He's clearly bringing his experience and design ideas used in webOS to Android. Some of the features may have existed in Android before, but clearly he's driving the UX/UI for them in a direction based on work he did with webOS as well.
Its not just a checkbox for "yep, does multitasking", but how that is presented to the user. The "card" metaphor is very different than iOS "double click home, show row of icons"
The competition between the mobile OS is driving innovation and movement toward better design patterns that will be common between them. Notifications is a good example of something moving that way already and how iOS has copied notifications that are similar to Android, but also more so webOS.
1. Unlike Apple, which apparently eschews formal user research, Google relied on "ethnographic research" to shape Android 4.0.
2. In between Apple's hyper-realistic UI and Microsoft's Spartan aesthetic, Google is trying to find a middle ground in Android 4.0 that facilitates new approaches and new experiences.
From the screenshots alone, it's hard to tell what it actually will be like to use Android 4.0. But it's great to see that Google is thinking so deeply about user experience.