Recently I had the opportunity and time to read a nice book related to native Android UI development: Android User Interface Development (Beginner's Guide) by Jason Morris - Packt Publishing.
Since the book itself claims to be a Beginner's guide it offers a very good hands on approach to learning Android UI development. A really useful and practical guide tο take уου step-bу-step through thе process οf developing user interfaces tο gеt уουr applications noticed.
Definitely a good read for both the beginner or for the Java developer who want to take its Android development skills one step further. You will not find informations like how to setup your IDE and development environment, it's all code, samples and tips... directly to the point:
Working through examples, code-snippets, and screenshots this book introduces the fundamentals of good user-interface design from a developer's point of view. This book will put you above the rest by showing you how to build striking user interfaces to grasp your app users' attention enough to make them shell out some bucks to buy your application.
Interested? Ream more details here!
Forum Nokia just published the QML UI Templates Library which provides commonly used UI-components for generic use with QML. This library is not meant to replace the official Qt Components-project but to provide larger templates for developers to take a look and utilize in their own projects.
The UI Templates Library contains reusable UI elements and templates used in the example applications RSSReader Example and Restaurant Application Example.
They are aimed to be the basic building blocks of QML applications focusing on the UI. They are not only elementary UI components, like buttons or switches, but rather more comprehensive templates like four views with tab navigation bar or a list view + details view integrated.
Read more information here.
I just came across a really useful resource published by Punchcut, a design toolset from managing screen resolutions: Pixel Proliferation.
The device landscape for which we design is always changing and the device types are always proliferating. And with the increasing demand for unique mid-screen devices, it is becoming an even more arduous task to keep things straight.
The UI projects range from HVGA mobile devices with touchscreens to high-definition televisions with 5-way input and Punchcut is offering the toolset to download here. (via Vivek)
(via UXMag) - The video below was put together by Lyle Alzaldo and some of his friends. It's an animated tribute to UX design for a pick-me-up. Enjoy!
Forum Nokia just renewed the Quick Guide to User Experience with the name Design Process in a Nutshell. It is now publicly available in the Design and User Experience library. Check it out here.
We, at Small Screen Desing, just published a new application on the Android Market: SmoothBeats.com Radio! SmoothBeats.com is a group of hip-hop and jazz radio stations streaming non-stop underground and mainstream hiphop beats 24 hours a day. This radio application was designed and developed by Small Screen Design and is fully compatible with all Android devices.
SmoothBeats.com Radio features a complete personalized UI, supports ShoutCast metadata and streaming in standby mode. Ah, one more thing: it's completely free! Enjoy!
On the Android developers blog was published a really interesting article about best practices for UI features and behavior patterns used to design and implement Twitter for Android:
Along with our regular updates of the Android platform, we like to build example applications that showcase best practices for UI features and behavior patterns, to help our 3rd party developers create even richer applications.
For example, the Twitter for Android application that we worked with Twitter to design gives you, the 3rd party developer, a working example of how you can customize and build an application that’s both fun and highly functional. This blog post is meant to showcase these patterns along with some recommended implementations as you start to develop your applications around them.
Read the full post here.
As mobile devices, platforms, and app stores proliferate, it's more important than ever to have the latest device information at your fingertips. Adobe Fireworks CS5 is integrated with Adobe Device Central CS5, enabling you to leverage handset data and work more productively from inception to final launch of your mobile project.
On the Adobe DevNet was recently published an interesting article (from Liz Myers) about how to harness the power of Fireworks combined with Device Central in "mobile" common workflows: Mobile workflows using Fireworks CS5 and Device Central CS5. Enjoy!
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