[Concept][08/01] Android 4.0 Concept User Interface Improvements

Evostance · Jan 5, 2012

I'll be designing various UI concept improvements for Android and I'll keep them uploaded here.

If you have any ideas then please, let me know

8th January - Notification Concept Improvements Part 1

My first concept interface is done and ready for viewing - as well as feedback and comments.

This concept goes over some of my notification concepts which I feel would make Android a little more functional and fluid. Let me know what you think.

This user interface concept improvement video covers 3 simply tweaks, which I feel improve the functionality of Android.

1) Bigger Notifications
These bigger notifications show the contact picture,and are large enough so the message can be read. They appear over the top of the default notification bar to save space.
Clicking on the notification takes you to the application for which the notification is for. In this case, its the Messaging App

2) Quick Reply
Something I feel that has been missing from Android for some time. When the message arrive, clicking on the message itself will open quick reply.
Quick Reply extends the notification area so you can reply to the message right from the notification area, without leaving the application you are currently in.

3) Swipe to Close/Mark
Notifications have already easy to close in Android by either pressing the 'X' or in Android 4.0, by swiping the notification away.
However, there is no way to mark a message or email as read if you close it from the notification area. This concept means that you can do this. Simply wipe the notification to the left to close it, or swipe it to the right to mark it as read and close it.

There were 2 other videos that didn't make it into the final video - the only reason for this is that they are longer and the size of the video came to about 600mb for a HD one. Hence why they were left out of this video.

You can find more information about these at this post: http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=21179299&postcount=62

All feedback and comments are welcome. Feel free to message me on any of the sites above.

These are just concepts, unfortunately I dont have the coding skills required to make this a reality. However if I can get ideas and make concepts up, a dev from the forums, the cyanogen mode team or perhaps Google themselves if we're lucky will see this and help make them become a reality.

If you would like to incorporate these ideas into a ROM, application etc, then please contact me first

Find me on the following websites:
Twitter
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Facebook

tsunami1609 · Jan 6, 2012

Honestly there isn't much I'd change right now. I haven't noticed much that I would change.
In terms of performance, they NEED to fix the autorotate function. Yes, it's nice now that it shows an animation, but it takes waaaay too long to rotate. This was the same gripe I had with Honeycomb tablets. I'm positive that it's intentional by Google, because other phone running ICS with skins rotate faster (I have a Sensation to compare).

This second one is gonna get a bit long.

Second, they need to change the response time of the recent apps button. After extended use and several apps running, there will be a slight delay between pressing the button and the list opening up. I'm actually fine with the fact that there's a delay, it's just where the delay is. The way it runs is you touch the button, there's a delay(lag, whatever you want to call it), then the phone vibrates, the button lights up, and the list comes up. What google needs to do is change the way it functions. Make sure the haptic feedback functions and the button lights up the instant your finger touches it. Then it can delay and the list can come up. In other words G needs to make the illumination and haptic feedback first priority. Then it could work on the multitasking process.

I think if it was done in this manner, the lag would be much less noticeable. It's the same as showing some sort of screen or animation when starting an app. If you touch an app and nothing happens (the screen doesn't change at all, not even a press animation) until the apps fully loaded and running it'll be seen as lag. If you touch an app and immediately see a loading screen or an animation (just examples) then you know the app started up already, and it's perceived as loading instead of lag.

Phew. That was a mouthful. It needed to be said. Come on now Google. All of both of these are just a little tweak in software. Entirely doable. Or maybe it's already done. I don't know for sure since I'm still running 4.0.1

Other than that ICS is great.

EDIT: oh and Google should change the notification to mirror that of tablets. I don't see why they removed the quick settings; it seems unlike them. Just the basics like in Honeycomb: wifi toggle, brightness, bluetooth and autorotate. I've seen mods include it, so I'm sure they could come up with an elegant solution

Smokeey · Jan 6, 2012

They need to add the ability to get rid of the Google Search bar on all homescreens or make it less intrusive on the homescreen.

@rbiter · Jan 6, 2012

Evostance said:
All,

Just doing a bit of research.

Even though we all love Android, its still got its gripes. One of those for me is that the interface isn't as fluid or as function as it could be.

As many of you have seen ICS now, what type of enhancements to the interface would you like to see?

To give you an idea of what i'm after: I personally still dont like the notifications. I feel that they are a bit limited as to whats on offer, so I would like to see more function added to them

Fixing notifications is easy. Just drag and drop custom sounds into notifications, alarm and ringtones folder. Using same nokia notification for text ever since my first smartphone. I have the usual buzzer alarm since ics didnt include it. I would also like option of no search bar or at least pinning it to desired homescreen. It would be nice if google included more in house options for themes, colors and backgrounds. Sms, gmail, calendar and email are ridiculously white. I'd like more black background white text options. We also need a toggle for the gpu clocks or coolbho3000 to hook us up in setcpu. Options for amount of home screens. 32GB and/or micro sd. Better clock options. Damn pogo pins car dock already.

My grandma beat me down and took my nexus. Sent from a jitterbug with beats by dre.

ATHM50 · Jan 6, 2012

tsunami1609 said:
Honestly there isn't much I'd change right now. I haven't noticed much that I would change.
In terms of performance, they NEED to fix the autorotate function. Yes, it's nice now that it shows an animation, but it takes waaaay too long to rotate. This was the same gripe I had with Honeycomb tablets. I'm positive that it's intentional by Google, because other phone running ICS with skins rotate faster (I have a Sensation to compare).

This second one is gonna get a bit long.

Second, they need to change the response time of the recent apps button. After extended use and several apps running, there will be a slight delay between pressing the button and the list opening up. I'm actually fine with the fact that there's a delay, it's just where the delay is. The way it runs is you touch the button, there's a delay(lag, whatever you want to call it), then the phone vibrates, the button lights up, and the list comes up. What google needs to do is change the way it functions. Make sure the haptic feedback functions and the button lights up the instant your finger touches it. Then it can delay and the list can come up. In other words G needs to make the illumination and haptic feedback first priority. Then it could work on the multitasking process.

I think if it was done in this manner, the lag would be much less noticeable. It's the same as showing some sort of screen or animation when starting an app. If you touch an app and nothing happens (the screen doesn't change at all, not even a press animation) until the apps fully loaded and running it'll be seen as lag. If you touch an app and immediately see a loading screen or an animation (just examples) then you know the app started up already, and it's perceived as loading instead of lag.

Phew. That was a mouthful. It needed to be said. Come on now Google. All of both of these are just a little tweak in software. Entirely doable. Or maybe it's already done. I don't know for sure since I'm still running 4.0.1

Other than that ICS is great.

EDIT: oh and Google should change the notification to mirror that of tablets. I don't see why they removed the quick settings; it seems unlike them. Just the basics like in Honeycomb: wifi toggle, brightness, bluetooth and autorotate. I've seen mods include it, so I'm sure they could come up with an elegant solution

Stole the words out of my mouth. It sounds like nit-pickey stuff but it really would bring it all together nicely.

BlackDino · Jan 6, 2012

tsunami1609 said:
Honestly there isn't much I'd change right now. I haven't noticed much that I would change.
In terms of performance, they NEED to fix the autorotate function. Yes, it's nice now that it shows an animation, but it takes waaaay too long to rotate. This was the same gripe I had with Honeycomb tablets. I'm positive that it's intentional by Google, because other phone running ICS with skins rotate faster (I have a Sensation to compare).

This second one is gonna get a bit long.

Second, they need to change the response time of the recent apps button. After extended use and several apps running, there will be a slight delay between pressing the button and the list opening up. I'm actually fine with the fact that there's a delay, it's just where the delay is. The way it runs is you touch the button, there's a delay(lag, whatever you want to call it), then the phone vibrates, the button lights up, and the list comes up. What google needs to do is change the way it functions. Make sure the haptic feedback functions and the button lights up the instant your finger touches it. Then it can delay and the list can come up. In other words G needs to make the illumination and haptic feedback first priority. Then it could work on the multitasking process.

I think if it was done in this manner, the lag would be much less noticeable. It's the same as showing some sort of screen or animation when starting an app. If you touch an app and nothing happens (the screen doesn't change at all, not even a press animation) until the apps fully loaded and running it'll be seen as lag. If you touch an app and immediately see a loading screen or an animation (just examples) then you know the app started up already, and it's perceived as loading instead of lag.

Phew. That was a mouthful. It needed to be said. Come on now Google. All of both of these are just a little tweak in software. Entirely doable. Or maybe it's already done. I don't know for sure since I'm still running 4.0.1

Other than that ICS is great.

EDIT: oh and Google should change the notification to mirror that of tablets. I don't see why they removed the quick settings; it seems unlike them. Just the basics like in Honeycomb: wifi toggle, brightness, bluetooth and autorotate. I've seen mods include it, so I'm sure they could come up with an elegant solution

Your second point is fixed in 4.0.3

I agree with the OP I hope google does something new with the notifications.
Even just adding them to the lockscreen like iOS would be awesome

I also dislike how the notifications have a character limit, it would be cool if you had the dropdown open long enough the text would scroll

daandman · Jan 6, 2012

- I'd love to have swiping away a text or email mark it as read. And while we're on notifications I don't get why contact pics don't display in the drop-down bar for texts, only for emails.

- Swiping away a recent app actually kills it

- Option to easily switch between the phone & people apps

- Option to mute shutter sound right in camera menu

- Notification bar toggles like in CyanogenMod or AOKP

BlackDino · Jan 6, 2012

daandman said:
- I'd love to have swiping away a text or email mark it as read. And while we're on notifications I don't get why contact pics don't display in the drop-down bar for texts, only for emails.

- Swiping away a recent app actually kills it

- Option to easily switch between the phone & people apps

- Option to mute shutter sound right in camera menu

- Notification bar toggles like in CyanogenMod or AOKP

Swiping away apps actually does kill them, you can see the process dying in the logs when removing from recent app list

Kinbote · Jan 6, 2012

I would like a new SMS app theme. The current one is pretty ugly. Something like Windows Phone 7's messaging theme would be much nicer.

Evostance · Jan 6, 2012

BlackDino said:
Your second point is fixed in 4.0.3

I agree with the OP I hope google does something new with the notifications.
Even just adding them to the lockscreen like iOS would be awesome

I also dislike how the notifications have a character limit, it would be cool if you had the dropdown open long enough the text would scroll

The reason I ask is im just doing a concept design for ICS. Not a custom launcher but actual improvements to stock.

For notifications i actually meant the looks and functionality of it. The first concept ive done is to change how the text notifications work.
I don't like the character limit or how restrictive it is, so I've changed it.

Hopefully when I've got my concepts together, someone will be able to help make them a reality, be it a dev, the cyanogen team or google themselves lol.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

tristan202 · Jan 6, 2012

I would really like a change to the lockscreen while listening to music. I want the bottom half of the screen to be transparent, or to show the wallpaper instead of beeing black. I have been searching through SystemUI, framework-res and android.policy.jar to try and find it, but haven't as of yet.

Evostance · Jan 6, 2012

tristan202 said:
I would really like a change to the lockscreen while listening to music. I want the bottom half of the screen to be transparent, or to show the wallpaper instead of beeing black. I have been searching through SystemUI, framework-res and android.policy.jar to try and find it, but haven't as of yet.

Do you mean where the soft buttons would sit?

You'd like to see music controls in there?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

Northernmost · Jan 6, 2012

Soft button area supporting gestures

I came to Android from webOS after HP shot themselves in the foot several times and one of the things I miss most is the gesture bar you had at the bottom of the screen. With the advent of the soft button area in ICS I see a real option to enable the area to work in a similar fashion.

For those that are unfamiliar with it it's basically an area at the bottom of the screen blocked off from apps that registers simple finger gestures. This made the basics of actually using a device a breeze and pleasure i.e. no looking for a particular button / tapping the wrong button when you weren't looking and the gestures were consistent no matter what app was running.

The gestures were:

A single swipe up would show you your running apps.
Swiping 2 fingers up would show you the launcher (app drawer).
A leftward swipe would go back.
A full swipe across the entire area going either right or left would take you to the next or previous running app.

Besides the wireless charging the gesture area was one of the webOS killer features you very quickly learned to take for-granted. So yeah, I'd like the soft button area to handle gestures in case you haven't guessed already

Evostance · Jan 6, 2012

Northernmost said:
I came to Android from webOS after HP shot themselves in the foot several times and one of the things I miss most is the gesture bar you had at the bottom of the screen. With the advent of the soft button area in ICS I see a real option to enable the area to work in a similar fashion.

For those that are unfamiliar with it it's basically an area at the bottom of the screen blocked off from apps that registers simple finger gestures. This made the basics of actually using a device a breeze and pleasure i.e. no looking for a particular button / tapping the wrong button when you weren't looking and the gestures were consistent no matter what app was running.

The gestures were:

A single swipe up would show you your running apps.

Swiping 2 fingers up would show you the launcher (app drawer).

A leftward swipe would go back.

A full swipe across the entire area going either right or left would take you to the next or previous running app.

Besides the wireless charging the gesture area was one of the webOS killer features you very quickly learned to take for-granted. So yeah, I'd like the soft button area to handle gestures in case you haven't guessed already

Ok ill see what I can mock up. I've done a basic notification text, just need to add another feature before i finalise it

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

Northernmost · Jan 6, 2012

Go you! I was hoping this was something Matias Duarte would bring to Android himself.

tristan202 · Jan 6, 2012

Evostance said:
Do you mean where the soft buttons would sit?

You'd like to see music controls in there?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

No, it's the black part of this screenshot I'd like changed.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Evostance · Jan 6, 2012

tristan202 said:
No, it's the black part of this screenshot I'd like changed.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Oh wow. Thats actually what it looks like when playing music

I think that black part may be for album art?

tristan202 · Jan 6, 2012

Evostance said:
Oh wow. Thats actually what it looks like when playing music

I think that black part may be for album art?

No, it just shows the album art at the very top. Up where the media buttons are.

Evostance · Jan 6, 2012

tristan202 said:
No, it just shows the album art at the very top. Up where the media buttons are.

How stupid. Definitely a tweak that should be there

mohitrocks · Jan 6, 2012

Honestly, the only two things I want to be changed in terms of the UI are

1.) The ability to hide the soft keys at will for example, if I'm playing a game I want to be able to utilize the entire screen. I think a gesture to hide + bring back the soft keys is the solution. Highly unlikely to be implemented anytime soon

2.) Such as many launchers which have the functionality to have scrollable docks, I would like the soft keys to be scrollable. It would be pretty awesome to be able to have different toggles such as wifi, Bluetooth and even apps always available since unlike the notification bar, the soft keys never disappear regardless of the current app.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

[Concept][08/01] Android 4.0 Concept User Interface Improvements

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